


Wish Upon A Fallen Star

by AlexIsNotHere



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F, Gen, Magical Girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 93,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexIsNotHere/pseuds/AlexIsNotHere
Summary: Magical Girls: Tokyo's first line of defense against terrible, otherworldly monsters known as Silence. With management agencies, devoted fanbases, inter-group rivalries, and politics galore, these gifted guardians are as much celebrity as they are hero. For years the Magical Girl landscape was dominated by A-RISE, a group so talented and so popular that no other organization could hold a candle to them. But following A-RISE's sudden disappearance five years ago a vacancy was left at the top- and there's no shortage of up and comers looking for their shot at the throne.
Relationships: Ayase Eli/Toujou Nozomi, Hoshizora Rin & Koizumi Hanayo & Yazawa Nico, Kazuno Leah & Kazuno Sarah, Kazuno Sarah/Kurosawa Dia, Kira Tsubasa/Minami Kotori, Kousaka Honoka & Minami Kotori & Sonoda Umi, Kunikida Hanamaru & Kurosawa Ruby & Tsushima Yoshiko, Kunikida Hanamaru/Nishikino Maki, Kurosawa Dia & Kurosawa Ruby, Kurosawa Dia & Matsuura Kanan, Kurosawa Dia & Ohara Mari, Matsuura Kanan/Ohara Mari, Sakurauchi Riko/Takami Chika, Sakurauchi Riko/Takami Chika/Watanabe You, Sakurauchi Riko/Watanabe You, Takami Chika/Watanabe You
Comments: 44
Kudos: 78





	1. Prologue

**2:07 pm, March 3rd, 2024  
Shibuya Crossing, Shibuya, Tokyo  
** ****

The skies were bright and blue overhead, sunshine beaming down clearly with only a few perfectly white clouds dotting the otherwise featureless expanse. Shibuya Crossing was, as was always the case at this time of day, packed with people, pedestrians and cars alike alternating and passing through the complex maze of streets and sidewalks in waves. Locals, tourists, esteemed businessmen and bored high school students alike all blurred into an incomprehensible mass, shifting and swarming and surging through one of Tokyo’s busiest districts. It was, by all accounts, a perfectly normal day.

Until the rift opened in the sky.

It was impossible to say who saw it first, but in a matter of seconds it had caught the attention of everyone present. The serene blue sky was split down the center by a dark tear, as if the air itself had somehow been ripped in half. And the moment the tear became visible screams and panic broke out in the crowd below, because everyone knew precisely what happened next.

Seconds after the rift appeared a claw protruded from within, its jet black, perfectly smooth surface rippled by shimmering purple distortions. Long, slender fingers came to jagged, razor-sharp points, and the claw alone must have been a story tall- a grim and telling portent of the creature it was attached to. Sure enough, as the claw grabbed against the edge of the rift and stretched it out further, more of the terrible monster that was emerging into Tokyo started to become visible: four-legged, hunched over, with a body long enough to stretch an entire city block, and a pointed tail just as lengthy. Its face was featureless, save for an angular jaw lined with rows upon rows of vicious fangs. The creature’s mouth opened wide as it entered into Tokyo fully, and it let out a horrifying, resonating roar that echoed down the streets, so loud the sound alone shattered windows on nearby buildings and sent branches falling from trees.

The streets below were in a full-on pandemonium by this point. Hordes of people were trying to flee from the scene as quickly as they could, shoving past and pushing through each other, some people falling to the ground, others trampling over them. It was horrific and chaotic, and the panic and fear caused the evacuation to be inefficient, wasting time, wasting precious seconds as the crowd tried to flee from the monster. Such chaos made civilians easy targets.

The monster turned its eyeless gaze down towards the street below, towards the hundreds of people trying to flee, and then it threw itself forward from its perch on the edge of the rift, hurtling towards the ground with claws outstretched and maw opened wide, body honed like a weapon as it prepared to close in on its prey. It never reached its target.

Fifteen feet up from the street the monster collided, full speed, with a shimmering barrier that had appeared over the crowd fractions of a second beforehand. The force of the impact sent a shockwave rippling through the area, shattering more windows still, causing streetlamps to rip from their foundations and collapse sideways. On the other side of the barrier, Anju Yuuki seemed unfazed.

The twenty-four-year-old woman was floating there above the crowd, one arm outstretched, white and gold dress shimmering with the same radiant energy that constituted the barrier that had just stopped the monster’s attack. For a moment Anju’s expression was gravely serious, eyes narrowed as she stared up at the monster, mouth pressed into a thin line. But, as she turned her attention backward, towards the crowds of people who seemed frozen in place now that she had appeared, her expression quickly turned into a wide, relaxed smile.

“Sorry to keep you waiting!” she called out. “But don’t you worry your pretty little heads! We’ve got this under control now!”

“They get uglier every time, don’t they?” Erena Toudou said, dropping down from where she had been floating several feet above so that her boots could clack against the horizontal barrier Anju was still maintaining. The monster stood atop the barrier as well and, now that it had recovered from the shock of the impact, it appeared to have turned its attention towards Erena. It opened its mouth to let out another bellowing screech, and then it began to charge, all four legs hurling it forward at tremendous speeds. But Erena was prepared.

Erena stood her ground until the monster was practically on top of her before throwing herself forward. The monster raised a claw to strike at her and, effortlessly, Erena ducked underneath, sliding forward on her knees to bring herself underneath the monster’s body. Once there she clapped her hands together, and in an instant dozens of shimmering chains flew forth and shot up into the air. They coiled out and stretched around the monster’s body, binding its legs, its torso, its jaw, restricting its movement and locking it in place. Erena grabbed the ends of the chains and pulled downward with her entire body, yanking the creature with her and sending it crashing down against the barrier. As she did so Erena dipped to the side just in time, narrowly avoiding the monster as it fell.

“It doesn’t matter how ugly they are while they’re alive,” Tsubasa Kira called out, strolling her way down the length of the barrier towards where the monster now lay. Her demeanor was calm, collected, utterly unconcerned about a creature a hundred times her own size. She came closer until she was roughly ten feet away, at which point she stopped, raising an arm up and pointing two fingers towards the monster, thumb extended into the air, closing one eye as she took aim. “They all die just as beautifully.” And then she pulled the trigger.

An enormous bolt of energy flew from Tsubasa’s fingertips, blindingly radiant, burning so brightly it seemed to blacken the daytime street around it. It shone with every color at once, casting dappled reflections across the buildings and streets, across the crowd below, as it soared towards the monster. Mere moments later it pierced through the monster’s head, and then exploded.

The monster’s entire form was blown to nothing in an instant, leaving no trace of the massive creature that had been lurking there seconds before. The bolt’s explosion was even more blinding than the bolt itself had been, but the flash came just as quickly as it went. When the light cleared shimmering sparks were left in the air, trailing down like the remnants of fireworks, painting rainbows across a sky that had now returned to normal. For a moment the scene was still. And then the crowd erupted into cheers.

Tsubasa turned back to face her audience now that the threat had been dealt with, and Anju and Erena did the same. Anju dispersed the barrier she had been holding up until then, leaving the three women floating there in the air a dozen or so feet above their adoring onlookers. Tsubasa put a practiced smile on her face, raising an arm to wave to the crowd as chants of “A-RISE! A-RISE! A-RISE!” broke out among them.

“Thank you, thank you!” she called out. “You’re all far too kind!”

“They love us, Tsubasa-chan,” Anju giggled, floating her way closer to her partner.

“Well of course they do,” Tsubasa replied, performative smile becoming just a bit more genuine as she did so- if not a bit more arrogant as well. “Have you seen us?”


	2. Three Mermaids

**3:19 pm, April 11th, 2030  
** **Shibuya Crossing, Shibuya, Tokyo**

“Jesus shitfucking Christ.” You Watanabe grit her teeth together as she slammed down into the pavement at full force, sending a painful shock reverberating through her body, tattering up the white and blue dress she was wearing. Despite the pain, though, she was quick to push herself back to her feet, trying to shake the injury off. Now wasn’t the time to sit there licking her wounds. Not while there was a Silence on the loose.

The central intersection of Shibuya Crossing had been successfully evacuated, at least, and the crowd that was watching- and there was _always_ a crowd- were doing so from a safe distance. That mitigated any immediate threat. Still, the longer this battle went on, the greater the risk of it spilling out of its current boundaries. The sooner they could close this out, the better.

“You-chan!” You heard Riko calling from a short distance away. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” You shouted back. “Don’t worry about me!” You, Riko, and Chika were spread out in a large triangle, surrounding the Silence on all sides. This Silence was at least merciful enough to be a smaller one, not standing more than ten feet tall- and that _was_ small, as far as these creatures were concerned. It had a bizarre physiology, lower half that of a snake while its upper half was decidedly human-like with a defined torso and long, sharp claws at the ends of its fingers, and no head to speak of. Despite its lack of ears or eyes, though, it seemed to have no trouble telling what was going on. As evidenced by the fact that it was already rushing towards You again.

You grit her teeth as she braced for the impact, measuring out the timing in her head as the monster got closer and closer. Finally, when it was about fifteen feet away, she stretched her arms out in front of herself, raising them up and shouting at the top of her lungs.

“Tidal Barrier, protect me!” At You’s command the space in front of her began to change, a thick, ten foot tall wall of water rushing up out of nothing to form a defensive curtain between You and the Silence. Not that it did anything- as the Silence reached the edge of the wall it pivoted abruptly, tail slashing at the water and cutting through it with ease. You wasn’t prepared for such an attack, and she didn’t have time to react. The monster’s tail caught her side, plowing into her with what must have been upwards of a hundred pounds of force, sending her flying and crashing back to the ground again. The Tidal Barrier collapsed the moment You was struck, and she was disoriented as she tumbled across the pavement, scraping up her arms and legs and rattling her skull around. When she finally looked up again she realized the Silence was directly on top of her, one clawed hand already raised into the air, poised to strike. It swung its hand downward, and then You felt arms around her torso, and the scenery around her changed.

Suddenly You was at the other end of the wide intersection, looking towards the space she had been just a moment before- and towards the Silence, smashing its hand down into the pavement with an attack that absolutely would have killed her if she had still been there. The arms around You’s torso let go, and she stumbled to her feet before hearing a voice behind her.

“Still okay?” Riko asked.

“I’m still standing, aren’t I?” You replied. “Thanks for that.”

“Of course,” Riko said. “I’m going to try to set it up. Chika-chan!” she then shouted, turning her attention towards Chika, who was standing a short distance down the street from them. “I’m sending it this way! Get ready!”

“Roger roger!” Chika shouted back, giving Riko a thumbs up. Riko nodded, and then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone again.

Riko reappeared at the other end of the intersection about twenty feet ahead of where the Silence was lingering, the monster still looking confused and disoriented over how suddenly its prey had vanished. “HEY, UGLY!” Riko shouted, immediately getting the creature’s attention again. “OVER HERE!” The moment it saw Riko the Silence started to charge- just like she wanted.

Riko stood her ground as the monster rushed towards her, measuring out the distance, waiting for just the right moment, just as You had done. Unlike You, however, Riko’s own strategy was a bit different. She waited until the Silence was about ten feet off, and then she clapped her hands together in front of her, before quickly stretching them out in opposite directions.

“Dimensional Gateway!” she shouted. “Open!” As Riko spoke a large, round portal opened in the air in front of her, similar to the rifts the Silence entered their world through, but different in color and more uniform in shape. The portal was large, nearly fifteen feet in diameter, stretching high up into the sky. And just as Riko had planned, the Silence didn’t have time to stop its charge before barrelling through it.

At the other end of the intersection a similar portal had opened at You’s feet, identical in appearance, though this one was laid flat across the ground. You was standing ready at the edge of it, and the instant the Silence entered the first portal it came shooting out of the second one, carrying with it all the momentum it had entered with, causing it to launch upward a good distance into the air. The creature was clearly disoriented, thrashing and twisting around wildly as it flew upward, and that was the opportunity You had been waiting for.

“Aqua Prison!” You shouted, swinging her arms skyward, causing more water to form and rush towards the Silence. As it crashed against the monster’s body the water packed in tightly and formed a large sphere, surrounding the Silence and keeping it trapped. The monster tried to lash out from within the prison, swinging its arms and tail around wildly, though with You’s concentration holding strong it was unable to do so. “Chika-chan, now!”

“On it!” Chika called back, flying in from overhead, arms stretched up into the air, hands already crackling with electricity. “Finishing Move!” she shouted. “Aqua Prison Execution Chamber!” Her palms slammed down against the edge of the watery sphere, and the electricity she had been channeling immediately increased tenfold, shooting out from her body and stretching across the entire sphere. The Silence writhed inside as electricity coursed through it, and the entire surface of the sphere rippled and churned with distortions, until it finally became too much, and both the Aqua Prison and the Silence within exploded.

The Silence’s body quickly dissipated as it was blown apart, form dissolving into nothing, just as they always did. The remains of the Aqua Prison showered down from above, meanwhile, coming down like a gentle rain- something Chika and You were both quite thankful for, after the sweat they had worked up during that fight. A moment after the Silence’s destruction the portal on the ground sealed up, and Riko appeared next to them seconds after that.

“Are you two feeling alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Chika replied, flashing a thumbs up, though it was clear from how heavily she was breathing that she had pushed herself with that last attack.

“I’ve been worse,” You added on. “Little beat up, but nothing a few ice packs won’t fix.” And then their attention was stolen away by the roaring, thunderous applause that had broken out from the crowd that had been barricaded off a short distance away. Chants of “THREE MERMAIDS! THREE MERMAIDS!” echoed down the streets, occasionally punctuated by names of the individual members. You forced a wide smile to her face and turned to wave towards the crowd, ignoring the throbbing pain in her side when she lifted her arm, and Chika and Riko followed suit.

“I’m surprised we’re getting this much applause,” Riko murmured, keeping her voice low. “I hardly think we looked our best today.”

“I hardly _feel_ my best,” Chika added on. “I just wanna sit down.”

“We all do,” You said, speaking through the gritted teeth of a wide, photogenic smile. “Just keep waving ‘til we’re out of sight.”

* * *

**4:14 pm, April 11th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

“You nearly got yourselves killed out there.”

“Did not! Things just got a little rough for a second, but we were fine!”

“I was watching the whole thing. You can’t lie to me.” Following their battle in Shibuya the members of Three Mermaids had returned to the headquarters of their talent agency, Ohara Incorporated. They were now standing in front of the desk of their manager, Dia Kurosawa, who was sitting across from them with a gravely serious expression on her face. A tone that wasn’t matched by Mari Ohara herself, who was perched on the corner of Dia’s desk, one leg crossed over the other.

“Did we watch the same battle, Dia?” Mari hummed out. “You-chan took a few brutal hits, and I’ll admit 'Aqua Prison Execution Chamber’ is a bit too gruesome to have real crowd appeal, but aside from that I think they did just fine.”

“‘A few brutal hits’ can be the difference between life and death. You should know that better than anyone,” Dia chided, shooting Mari a sideways glance before turning her attention to the members of Three Mermaids. “I stand by what I said: what I saw out there today wasn’t up to the caliber of a professional Magical Girl unit. Quite frankly, I have half a mind to pull you from duty after a showing like that one.”

“You can’t do that!” Chika blurted out. “That’s not fair!”

“I think what Chika-chan is _trying_ to say,” You cut in, putting a hand on her best friend’s shoulder to hold her back, “is that pulling us out of the field because of this seems like an extreme reaction. I’ll be the first to admit that battle was a little sloppy, and we have a lot of room to grow, but the only way we can get better is through practice.”

“And we _are_ getting better,” Riko added on. “Even a bad fight like this one is a learning experience. We’ll study our mistakes, and we’ll train to shore up our weaknesses, and next time we go out we’ll be stronger than we were today.”

“That’s right!” Chika agreed, nodding along to her friends’ words enthusiastically. “Just you wait! Give us a chance to prove ourselves and you’ll see how strong we can be! We’ll become the best of the best!” she insisted. “We’ll be the next µ's! The next A-RISE!”

“µ's disbanded,” Dia bit back. “And A-RISE vanished. Are those really the examples you want to go with?” A tense silence fell over the room as Dia said something not even Chika could come up with a stubborn, thickheaded response to, though it was broken when Mari pivoted on the edge of the desk to face Dia more fully.

“Sloppy performance or no, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself here,” she chided. “After all, it’s not like we have an abundance of backup talent to rely on. How do you expect to run a successful agency when you’ve pulled your only group from duty?”

“This isn’t a question of business,” Dia replied. “It’s a question of _safety_. If I have to run this agency into the ground so that I can keep our talent safe then so be it.”

“Ladies,” Mari said, turning her head back towards Three Mermaids again. “You’re not getting benched, and Dia-san and I need to have a little chat. Would you give us the room?” It was clear from the looks on their faces that You, Chika, and Riko were all uncomfortable with this resolution, though given that Mari had ruled in their favor, they also weren’t going to stick around long enough to let Dia argue against her. Giving a polite series of nods they turned and excused themselves from the room, and Mari waited until they were out the door to return her attention to Dia.

“You can’t just undermine me like that,” Dia snapped.

“Remind me again,” Mari replied. “Who’s name is on our front door?”

“You left me in charge of day to day operations for a reason.”

“And I maintained veto power for a reason as well. I trust your judgment ninety percent of the time, Dia. But that other ten percent of the time…”

“You’re willing to send our employees on a suicide mission just to spite me.” The bemused, carefree smile faded from Mari’s face as she heard that, and she looked over to see Dia staring back at her with a cold, steely expression, one that she didn’t particularly seem to care for.

“It’s not a suicide mission,” she chided. “And I’m not doing it just to spite you. You have to realize how unreasonable you’re being right now.”

“It’s unreasonable to care about the safety of my employees?” Dia replied. “It’s unreasonable to worry that they’re not prepared for the situations they’re being sent into? It’s unreasonable not to want them to get hurt or killed because of decisions _we’ve_ made?”

“You can’t keep living in the past, Dia,” Mari said, and that seemed to be enough to make Dia fall silent, at least for a moment. A tenseness lingered between them, and Mari moved her hand up to touch lightly at her own side before she continued speaking. “I told you when we first founded this agency that I wasn’t going to let it become that. You promised me this was your way of moving forward.” Dia clenched her teeth together tightly when she heard that, eyes pulling away from Mari, and a few seconds passed before she responded.

“It is,” she insisted. “But there’s a difference between not living in the past and ignoring it outright.

“Then prove to me that you’re capable of knowing that difference,” Mari replied, sliding off Dia’s desk so abruptly that Dia jolted upright in her chair, as if to stop her. “Three Mermaids are staying on duty,” she continued, strolling her way towards the office door. “Tighten up their training regimen. Hire them a new teacher. Do whatever you need to do to feel confident in their abilities. But I’m not letting you axe them because of one bad showing.” Dia sincerely and from the bottom of her heart wanted to object to that, but before she was able to do so Mari was out the door, and Dia was alone in her office.

* * *

**2:31 am, April 12th, 2030  
** **Adachi, Tokyo**

Parts of Tokyo never slept, staying lively and crowded at all hours of the day, city lights illuminating the night sky long after the sun had gone down, keeping up their vanguard until it eventually rose again. Other parts, however, were more quiet, more suburban, more prone to going dark and silent once ten pm came and went. Even in that nighttime stillness, though, there was always movement to be found somewhere.

A figure moved between the rooftops of Adachi, vaulting from building to building, traversing the houses and apartment buildings like an expansive concrete playground. The figure’s face was halfway illuminated in the clear silver moonlight, though at this hour nobody was around to recognize her once-famous image.

Eyes scanned back and forth across the night sky, keeping a vigilant watch for any sign of a disturbance. The moon was halfway through its cycle, and the sky was mostly bare aside from that, few stars managing to shine through the light pollution that Tokyo produced so readily. For hours now, everything had seemed normal- until suddenly it wasn’t.

The figure stopped dead in her tracks as, roughly five hundred feet away, the familiar sight of a rift started to stretch across the sky, and then she was on the move again, running across rooftops towards it as fast as she could. The rift stretched wider as she approached, and then a hand reached through, and another, and another, and yet another after that. A grotesque, four-armed Silence began to push its way through the tear in the sky, and the figure reached the edge of the roof below the rift just as the monster’s featureless head came through the tear as well.

“Hey, asshole!” the figure shouted, voice carrying and echoing through the otherwise quiet district. The Silence’s head slowly turned towards her as the figure reached an arm out, a shimmering, radiant spear made from pure energy forming in her grip. “You came to the wrong neighborhood.” And then, with her weapon at the ready, Kanan Matsuura lunged towards her next prey.


	3. Winds of Change

**11:53 am, April 12th, 2030  
** **Shinjuku, Tokyo**

“You eat that fast you’re gonna make yourself sick, Chika-chan.”

“But it’s so goooooood! And I didn’t eat breakfast this morning!”

“ _Again_? We’ve talked about this.” While Riko prepared to give Chika yet another lecture on healthy eating habits, You simply sat there on the other end of the table with a grin on her face, popping another french fry between her teeth. Normally the trio would have been back at Ohara Incorporated training or getting ready to get out on patrol at this point but, seeing as how today was one of their few scheduled days off, they had decided to get lunch together instead. With how badly her injuries were still throbbing away against her side, You was quite thankful for that.

“You’re making a mess of yourself too,” Riko was in the midst of huffing, reaching up to dab ketchup away from the corner of Chika’s mouth with a napkin.

“Not gonna use your tongue?” You teased, immediately causing Riko to go red in the face and pull herself back. Which, of course, only caused You to laugh even more. Within another second Chika was already diving back in on her burger and taking another enormous bite before, much to Riko’s continued annoyance, starting to talk again with her mouth full.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Dia-san was acting real weird yesterday, right?” At the mention of Dia’s name both Riko and You adopted slightly more serious expressions, and You hesitated for a moment before responding.

“She was being kinda uptight,” You agreed. “But she’s always like that.”

“She’s not normally _that_ bad, though,” Chika insisted. “Like, threatening to pull us off duty? What was that about??”

“She’s just worried about us,” Riko insisted, though even she didn’t sound confident in those words as she said them.

“You’ve gotta admit, we didn’t do great out there yesterday,” You continued. “I got smacked around pretty bad. My side’s still throbbing. And if Riko-chan hadn’t pulled me out of the way of that one attack…” She trailed off at that point, though it was clear enough what she was going to say.

“Well, still,” Chika huffed after a few seconds of silence had passed. “It’s not fair for her to punish us that much just because we screwed up once.”

“Maybe not,” Riko agreed. “But you can’t really blame her, considering… Considering her history.” Dia’s ‘history,’ as Riko delicately put it, was something of an open secret around Ohara Incorporated. It was the sort of thing they avoided speaking about most of the time, knowing that Dia wouldn’t be happy if she overheard them, but they knew, and she knew they knew. Everyone in Tokyo knew. Bearing that in mind, You could understand why Dia behaved the way she did when managing them. It made sense that she would act with an abundance of caution, would be less willing to put her own employees into harm’s way, and would, at times, even act in ways that might seem rash or dramatic to an outsider. You was sympathetic. Even if she understood, though, that still didn’t mean she agreed with all of Dia’s decisions, and that was definitely a sentiment that was echoed around the table.

“Just because she has a tragic backstory doesn’t mean she’s right about everything,” Chika grumbled. You wanted to criticize Chika for that, tell her to show a little more respect for their manager, but honestly, she couldn’t stop herself from snickering at Chika’s indignant expression. That earned her a harsh glare from Riko, who was, apparently, holding it together far better than You herself.

“It doesn’t really matter either way,” she insisted. “Mari-san stepped in to intervene, so we’re fine.”

“Yeah. Until next time Dia-san decides to fly off the handle,” Chika muttered back.

“Well, hopefully,” Riko said, “that’s not going to happen.”

* * *

**12:09 pm, April 12th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

Dia’s conversation with Mari had been weighing heavily on her mind since the previous day. If she’d had her way she still would have pulled Three Mermaids from duty and put them through a far more rigorous training regimen before letting them back out into the field, though Mari had made it clear at this point that she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

With her first choice off the table Dia had started looking at secondary plans instead, and one thing Mari had said to her still stood out strongly: get them a new teacher. Dia had trained with Three Mermaids a few times in the past, but her specialty had always been in strategy. She was good at planning, good at seeing the bigger picture, good at playing the role of the tactician. When it came to groundwork, to the moment to moment of battle, to knowing how to fight and, more importantly, teaching that to others, Dia had to admit that her own skills were lacking. She wanted someone better than herself, someone stronger, someone more skilled in combat and practice than tactics and theory. And whenever Dia thought that, one name kept coming to mind…

Dia was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of a knock against her office door frame, despite the fact that her door was open, and she looked up to see a familiar face standing there. Dia smiled and straightened her posture, pushing aside the documents she had been looking over before waving her visitor forward. “Come in, Ruby.”

Ruby Kurosawa was a common sight around the offices of Ohara Incorporated, not because she worked there in any official capacity, but simply because she hung around there so often regardless. At times it was to visit her older sister, while at others it was due to her long-standing fascination with Magical Girls. She had adored them ever since she had been young, much like Dia herself (though Dia was typically far more reticent to admit to what she saw as such a childish fascination). Even if Three Mermaids were a newer group, not as famous and popular as some of the industry’s bigger names, Ruby always seemed excited to be in their presence regardless.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Ruby asked as she made her way further into Dia’s office.

“Not at all,” Dia replied, shaking her head. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Ruby cracked a little smile at that, stopping about halfway into the room, though it was clear from her hunched up shoulders and her locked knees that she was a little bit nervous as well.

“I’ve been practicing something,” Ruby said. “I wanted to show you.”

“Have you?” Dia replied, raising an eyebrow while her lips twitched up into a faint, bemused expression. “I would love to see it.” Ruby nodded eagerly at that point, excitement seeming to displace her nervousness just a bit. She adjusted her posture, shoulders lowering down and back and legs straightening out, and after another moment her nervousness and excitement both seemed to fade away in favor of leaving Ruby calm and stoic. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, stretching her arms out in front of her torso and pressing her fingers together so that they made a diamond shape, before calling out.

“Corundum Prism!” As Ruby shouted that the air in front of her flickered, and a moment later a magical conjuration was taking shape in the space before her. What started as an unstable red glow quickly took on a more solid form, stretching outward and bending at sharp angles until it had constructed a deep red gemstone, about three feet tall and floating a foot off the ground, slightly translucent due to its ethereal nature. The gem rotated slowly as it hovered there, catching the afternoon sunlight that was streaming in through Dia’s office windows. In doing so it split the light apart and sent it outward in every direction, causing every surface in Dia’s office to become dappled with hundreds of tiny little rainbow flickers, slowly twisting and turning across the walls and floor and ceiling as the gemstone continued to spin.

“Very impressive,” Dia said, clapping her hands together in a light bit of applause. “I can tell you’ve been hard at work practicing.” Upon hearing her sister’s approval Ruby opened her eyes back up, a smile coming over her face, though she didn’t let her concentration break entirely, and the gem stayed in the air in front of her.

“This is just a little demonstration, too,” Ruby said. “I think…” She trailed off for a moment there, though, hesitating before speaking her next words. “I think it could even have combat capabilities, if I-”

“Absolutely not.” Dia cut Ruby off so firmly and abruptly that Ruby flinched backwards, and as her concentration wavered the gem flickered out from view in front of her, before disappearing entirely. Ruby looked startled, while Dia’s own expression had hardened now, eyes narrowing, corners of her mouth bending down to a frown.

“But I-”

“ _No_ ,” Dia repeated, even more firmly. “We’re not having this discussion again.”

“Why not?” Ruby insisted, arms dropping, fists clenching tightly at her sides. “I’m- I’m getting better. You’ve seen it.”

“I don’t care,” Dia replied. “You’re not becoming a Magical Girl, and that’s final.” Ruby had dropped her eyes away from her sister now, staring down towards her own feet instead. The same tenseness she’d showed when she first entered the room had returned, more pronounced than before now.

“You were a Magical Girl,” she murmured, halfway under her breath.

“And look how that ended,” Dia replied. “It’s far too dangerous. I won’t allow it, and that’s final.”

“Fine,” Ruby snapped, an uncharacteristic note of anger making its way into her voice. Without saying anything else, and without looking at Dia, she pivoted on her heels and started to march back towards the door. Dia let out a sigh at the sight of her sister storming out, quickly calling after her.

“Ruby, please, understand that this is for your own safety. Ruby. Ruby!” But Ruby didn’t seem interested in talking to her any longer.

* * *

**12:16 pm, April 12th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated (Outside), Nakano, Tokyo**

Ruby had left the building in a hurry, keeping her head down and ignoring anyone else she passed along the way. Her fingernails were still digging into her palms, and she was still biting back the anger and frustration she was feeling towards Dia at the moment. All things considered, it was probably better that Ruby had gotten out of there before she ended up saying something she would regret. Not that she wasn’t about to do just that anyway.

The street outside the building where Ohara Incorporated’s office was located was busy, afternoon crowds bustling past each other and filling up the sidewalk. Standing out from the sea of interchangeable faces, however, were two particular people sitting closer to the office building’s doors, one of them sitting on the ground against the wall while the other had perched herself on the edge of a railing. Both of them looked towards Ruby as she stepped outside, though Ruby was still keeping her eyes towards the ground, and didn’t look back at them.

“Hey, how’d it go in there?” Yoshiko Tsushima asked, though Ruby’s demeanor was already enough to tell her everything she needed to know.

“Did you convince her?” Hanamaru Kunikida added on. Ruby stopped, standing closer to her friends, and a few seconds passed before she shook her head.

“No,” Ruby muttered. “It was the same as always.”

“Dammit,” Yoshiko groaned, and though she sounded exasperated she didn’t exactly seem surprised. “I know she’s a hardass, but I really thought you might be able to win her over eventually.”

“You showed her your new trick, right?” Hanamaru asked. “And it still didn’t work?”

“I don’t think anything’s going to work,” Ruby replied. “Not as long as it’s me.” Her words brought a heavy tone to the air, leaving both Yoshiko and Hanamaru in a position where neither of them knew what to say. Ruby was silent for a few seconds longer as well, though eventually she lifted her head to look back at her friends, and while her expression was still anxious and frustrated there was a determination behind her eyes now as well. “I think… I think it’s time to start looking at our other options.”

“Other options…” Yoshiko repeated. “You mean…?”

“Do you really think we can even get a meeting there?” Hanamaru asked.

“I’m Dia Kurosawa’s little sister,” Ruby replied. “If I’m the one calling, they’ll wanna talk to me.”

* * *

**12:51 pm, April 12th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated (Interior), Nakano, Tokyo**

After Ruby had left Dia had tried to turn her attention back to the paperwork she had been dealing with, though that was something easier said than done. Her conversation with her sister was still rattling around in her brain, and although Dia stood by what she had said and believed that it was all for the best… Ruby certainly didn’t seem to feel that way.

“You called for me?” Dia had been lost enough in her thoughts that she'd almost forgotten that she _had_ , in fact, called for Mari, and the voice coming from her doorway startled her for a moment before she was able to pull herself together.

“I did,” she replied. “I wanted to speak with you about something.”

“‘ _I wanted to speak with you about something_ ,’” Mari repeated, dropping her voice down a bit to better mimic Dia’s. “You’re always so stiff and formal. I saw your sister earlier, by the way," she added on. "She was storming out of here like she was upset about something. Is everything alright with you two?” Dia grimaced at the mention of that, quickly motioning Mari over towards her desk.

“It was nothing,” she insisted. “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Mari sighed, walking over to the edge of Dia’s desk. “It never is.” Shooting Mari a sideways glare, Dia then turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” she began. “About Three Mermaids, and about hiring them a new trainer. If you’re going to go insist on keeping them in the field, then I think that would be the best course of action.”

“Ahh, excellent, excellent,” Mari hummed. “Do you just need me to sign off on the paperwork, then?”

“Not exactly,” Dia replied. “I’ve been looking over profiles for a while, trying to find someone who would be a good fit for the role. Someone I can trust to actually do the job well. And, after considering it for the past day… I really only see one option.” Dia punctuated those words with a pointed glance in Mari’s direction and, from the way Mari’s eyebrow arched up as she looked back at Dia, it seemed that she was following along.

“You mean…?”

“Unless you have any other suggestions,” Dia replied. “But you and I both know she was always the best of us. If there’s anyone who can whip those three into shape…”

“Be that as it may,” Mari replied, pulling her eyes away from Dia now, staring out the window over the Tokyo skyline instead. “We’ve barely spoken to her for the past two years. And you know she wasn’t exactly thrilled about us starting this agency.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Dia said. “And I’m aware she likely won’t be thrilled about having me ask her to come back like this either. But I at least feel obligated to try.”

“Well if that’s your decision I’m not going to stop you,” Mari said, startling Dia with just how quickly she bent on the subject. “If you think this is best go ahead and give her a call. Just do me a favor and keep my name out of the conversation, would you? I don’t really want to get dragged into the center of this.”

“Our company is named after you,” Dia replied. “That’s going to be a hard thing to dance around.”

“You’re resourceful. You’ll figure it out. Did you need anything else, then?” Mari asked, turning back towards the door. “Or was that all?” For a moment Dia opened her mouth to protest, not wanting Mari to leave so soon, but she quickly realized she didn’t have anything else to say. She closed her mouth, and then nodded once, before actually speaking up.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Wonderful. Give her a call, then. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.”

“Toodles.” With that Mari exited the room, and Dia was left to look back down at her own desk again, eyes slowly finding themselves drawn towards the phone sitting at the corner. She didn’t exactly _want_ to do this, but she knew there was no point in trying to put it off either. The longer she waited, the harder it was going to get. Forcing herself to reach out Dia picked up the handset, dialing a number she still knew by heart and holding the phone to her ear as she listened to it connect. Her heart began to beat just a bit faster as she listened to it ring once, then twice, and her stomach was twisting itself in knots by the third and fourth rings. Eventually, though, Dia heard a click, and a voice on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Kanan. It’s Dia.” A long silence followed that introduction, and Dia was sincerely worried that Kanan was just going to hang up the call right then and there. But after several long seconds had passed, she heard Kanan continue to speak on the other end.

“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

“I know,” Dia replied. “I’m sorry for calling you out of the blue like this.”

“What do you need?” Straight to the point, and some part of Dia resented the assumption that she wouldn’t be calling unless she needed something. But she couldn’t pretend Kanan wasn’t right.

“I have a business opportunity for you,” she began. “We’re-”

“Not interested.” Dia winced as she was cut off, but she was quick to continue speaking.

“It’s not like that. You’re familiar with Three Mermaids and their recent fame, I assume?” A brief pause, and then an answer.

“I watch the news, yeah.”

“Then I’m sure you saw the coverage of their showing at Shibuya Crossing yesterday,” Dia continued. “And I’m sure a discerning eye like yours was able to see how substandard it was.”

“So you want me to fix them.” That was the Kanan Dia knew so well. Sharp as a knife, and never one to beat around the bush.

“That’s correct,” Dia replied. “You’re the strongest fighter I’ve ever known. You are, quite frankly, the only one I trust for a job like this.” Another pause, and then Kanan spoke again.

“You’re still in Nakano, right?”

“We are, yes.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow then. We’ll have this conversation in person.”

“That would be-” Dia started to say, though before she could finish the sentence there was a beep on the other end, telling her the line had gone dead. For a moment Dia sat there in disarmed shock, and then, slowly, she reached out to put the phone back down on her desk. Playing that conversation over again in her mind she didn’t quite know what to make of it; on the one hand she hadn’t gotten an outright “no,” and that was a worst-case scenario she’d been quite prepared for. At the same time, though, she couldn’t exactly bring herself to feel optimistic about tomorrow’s meeting. How long had it even been since she had seen Kanan in person? It must have been at least six months, probably longer than that. If Kanan wanted to speak to her face to face now, Dia shuddered at the thought of the things that were going to be said.

* * *

**2:57 pm, April 12th, 2030  
** **Tokyo Harbor, Tokyo**

The cooling breeze blowing in off the ocean might have been pleasant and relaxing, were it not for the smog mixing in as it billowed down from the smokestacks of the large ferry that had just recently docked. Quite a few people were making their way down the walkway and back onto dry land now, some of them dragging assorted bits of luggage with them while others were just there for a day trip. In the middle of the crowd, two young women in particular stood out, walking alongside each other and dragging heavy bags with them. The taller of the two women was drawing a bit of attention to herself, other heads in the crowd glancing towards her as passersby whispered between each other, trying to place why they recognized her or figure out if she really was who they thought she was, though she didn’t seem bothered by any of it. They both pushed their way through the crowd until they had made it a short distance away, at which point they stopped, looking out over Tokyo as it stretched out in front of them.

“What do you think, Leah?” the taller of the two asked. “Tokyo’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”

“Hardly,” Leah replied, wrinkling her nose up in displeasure. “Too big. Too loud. It already smells like shit.” Sarah couldn’t stop herself from laughing at that, eyes glancing down towards her sister for a moment before she looked back out over the city once more.

“Well you’d better get used to it,” she said. “This is home from now on. Now let’s hurry and get ourselves settled in,” she added on, corners of her mouth twitching up into a smile. “I’ve heard an old friend is still in town, and I’m eager to pay her a visit.”


	4. Kanan

**1:08 pm, April 13th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

Dia’s stomach was twisting itself into knots again. During their phone call the previous day Kanan had only stated that she would come by the offices “tomorrow,” and had declined to give a specific window beyond that. Dia had almost considered calling Kanan back to sort out further details, though with how abruptly Kanan had hung up on her that seemed like it wouldn’t be appreciated. Instead she was just left to sit in her office, as she had been all throughout the morning, and even through what would normally be her lunch, expecting Kanan to show up in her doorway at any moment. So far she hadn’t.

And then she did.

She appeared in the doorway to Dia’s office so suddenly and so silently that Dia nearly fell out of her chair when she realized there was a person in the room with her now, and her heart rate and adrenaline both skyrocketed instantly. It was surreal and bizarre seeing Kanan there in the flesh after so long, and seeing her _in Dia’s own office_ of all places. It made her look out of place, like a part of an image that had been clearly and poorly edited in. None of this seemed to bother Kanan herself, though, who was simply keeping her expression stoic and cold as she walked into the room.

“Nice place you have here.”

“You’ll- You’ll have to forgive me,” Dia replied, taking a moment to try to collect herself. “I didn’t notice you come in.” While Dia spoke Kanan walked further into the room still, shedding the coat she had been wearing on the way over. In doing so Dia could see that Kanan had been keeping herself in excellent shape lately- Dia’s own form had deteriorated a bit over the past few years, confined to a desk as she so often was, but Kanan was just as muscled and lean as she had ever been. There was a chair in front of Dia’s desk, which Dia had set out just for this meeting, though rather than sitting down Kanan simply tossed her jacket over the back of it, choosing to remain standing instead.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Kanan said. “So let’s just get right to it.”

“Yes, of course,” Dia replied, nodding hastily, still trying to collect her thoughts. She took a moment to straighten her posture and clear her throat, and then continued to speak, sounding at least a bit more confident and organized. “As I mentioned when we spoke yesterday, we’re looking for someone to act as a teacher to our Magical Girl unit Three Mermaids," she explained. "Their performance has been subpar as of late, and it’s clear we need to increase the intensity of their training regimen if they’re to live up to the standards we expect from them.”

“Let me ask you something,” Kanan replied, speaking with a blunt tone that caught Dia off guard. “I saw the news. I watched that video of their fight in Shibuya Crossing. And I saw that Watanabe was about a half a second from dying right then and there. If Sakurauchi had been just a little bit slower you’d have blood on your hands right now. So what I wanna know,” Kanan said, “is why the _hell_ you’re still trying to send them out there in the first place.” Kanan’s tone was already enough to put Dia on the defensive, though the specific things Kanan said struck a nerve with her, causing her eyebrow to twitch down in frustration.

“I assure you,” she replied, “it’s not a decision we take lightly. We’ve given it ample consideration, and-”

“Ample consideration?” Kanan interrupted. “You called me the _day_ after it happened. I know you, Dia. You spend an hour trying to decide which pair of shoes to wear out of the house each morning, and you expect me to think a single day was enough time to think over something like _this_?”

“We looked at every possible angle, I promise,” Dia insisted. “This is the best path forward, for everyone involved, and as such-”

“Bullshit,” Kanan cut her off again. “It’s the best thing for _you_ , and for _your_ career, and for this little agency you’re running.”

“If you’re just going to chastise me why did you come all the way here in the first place?” Dia asked, realizing she was allowing an unwanted hint of frustration to creep into her voice. “You could have said no over the phone, and in far fewer words.”

“I wanted you to look me in the eyes while you explained yourself,” Kanan replied. “It’s a lot easier to lie to someone you don’t have to see.”

“You think I’m lying about this?”

“I don’t really want to,” Kanan said. “I don’t wanna believe you’ve fallen so far that you would throw those girls to the wolves and then stare me dead in the eyes and tell me it’s ‘for the best’ and you’re ‘taking precautions’ and whatever other PR crap falls out of your mouth so readily these days, but apparently that’s-”

“It was Mari's decision,” Dia finally blurted out, and the words brought an immediate silence over the room. Dia knew she shouldn't have said that- she had promised Mari she wouldn't- but she couldn't stop herself, and even now, she didn't exactly feel bad about it. Dia's chest felt tight, and while Kanan didn’t exactly look less angry, she at least seemed startled enough to go quiet for a few seconds. Dia was going to seize that opportunity. “For the record,” she continued, speaking while she had the chance to do so uninterrupted, “I agree with you. I don’t think they should be out in the field either. I don’t think they’re ready for it. But Mari was adamant, and if that’s her decision then I don’t have a say in the matter. So this is all I can do in the meantime.”

The room was quiet even after Dia finished speaking, and while Dia could feel Kanan’s eyes on her, she was avoiding returning the gaze. She didn’t know what to expect from Kanan at this point, especially now that Mari had been brought up. She halfway expected Kanan just to turn and walk out of the room without another word, and as such, she was surprised to hear Kanan speak again instead.

“Fine. I’ll do it.” Kanan’s words startled Dia even more than the fact that she was speaking at all, and shocked as she was Dia ended up lifting her eyes again to find Kanan staring right back at her with a stern, steely gaze. It was enough to make Dia flinch, and to cause her to trip over her words again.

“You- You will?” she asked, unable to hide the shock from her voice.

“I will,” Kanan replied. “But let me make one thing clear: I’m not doing this as a favor to you. I’m doing this because if you’re gonna insist on sending those girls out there anyway, someone needs to make sure they’re not about to get themselves killed. I’m doing this for them. Not for Mari, not for you, and sure as hell not for your little agency.” Kanan’s tone and words alike were still hostile, and Dia had to fight the instinct to shrink down in her seat, like a child being reprimanded. Despite that, though, she _had_ technically gotten what she wanted, and she tried her best to focus on that positive aspect of the conversation.

“I understand,” Dia replied, managing to keep her voice steady. “I’ll start drafting up a contract for-”

“I don’t need a contract,” Kanan interrupted, grabbing her coat off the chair. “And I don’t want your money. Tell those girls we start tomorrow, bright and early. Seven am. I’ll meet them outside this building.”

“U-Understood,” Dia replied, trying to maintain any sense of control over the conversation. Before she had the chance to say anything else, though, Kanan had already slipped her coat on and turned her back to Dia, headed for the door. It was only once she was already halfway out of the office that she stopped, looking back over her shoulder one more time.

“And hey. Dia?”

“Yes?” Dia replied, almost on instinct, adrenaline spiking back up in anticipation of whatever Kanan was going to say next.

“Where’s Mari’s office?” The question warranted the nervousness, making Dia’s blood run cold, and she didn’t know how to answer it. She had already brought Mari up once during this conversation, and that had been one time too many. Surely, Mari wouldn’t want Dia to be discussing this. And yet… Kanan was her friend, too. Or at least she had been, a long time ago. Frustrating as it was, Dia couldn’t bring herself to lie to her, and in the end she had no choice but to give a truthful answer.

“It’s next door,” Dia said. “But… Mari isn’t in there right now. She had other business to deal with. She didn’t come in today.” A beat passed, and then Kanan nodded, before turning her head away again.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” she said. “But I’m basically gonna be working here now. Tell her she can’t avoid me forever.” And then Kanan was gone, and Dia was alone once more.

* * *

**3:01 pm, April 13th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

Once again, Dia was having an incredibly hard time focusing. It had been well over an hour since Kanan had left her office, but that still hadn’t been nearly enough time for her to get her thoughts back on track. She had set about trying to rearrange Three Mermaids’ schedule to accommodate this new and rather abrupt development- she hadn’t expected their new training to be starting quite so soon, and bumping the several appointments they were supposed to have tomorrow was already proving to be a pain in her ass. Given what thin ice she was already on, however, Dia knew better than to make this Kanan’s problem.

“Yes, I know the policy. I know we can’t get the deposit back. Yes. Yes, I understand that. I still need to cancel. No. Thank you.” Slamming her phone back down onto the receiver just a bit too firmly the moment the call was over Dia let out a long, frustrated groan, shutting her eyes and reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. Twenty-thousand yen for a photoshoot, down the drain because Kanan had come through and upended her entire schedule.

“I know that look. Long day?” Dia was startled by the sound of a voice coming from her doorway. It wasn’t Mari, or anyone else she recognized- no it _was_ someone she recognized, and that made it all the more shocking. Opening her eyes, Dia’s heart skipped a beat.

“Sarah?” And then, seeing the other girl standing next to Sarah Kazuno, Dia cleared her throat and straightened her back, quickly correcting herself. “I- I mean- Kazuno-san,” she said. “What- What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t even know you were in Tokyo.”

“Just got in yesterday,” Sarah replied, casually strolling further into Dia’s office while the other girl silently followed behind her. “We figured we’d come to Tokyo for a bit, see the sights, appreciate the big city. Been a while since I’ve been here, you know.”

“I see,” Dia replied, though she very much didn’t, and was still struggling to figure out why Sarah was in her office in the first place. “How long are you in Tokyo for?”

“Indefinitely,” Sarah replied, locking eyes with Dia as she said that, while a wide, smug smile appeared on her face. That answer only confused Dia even further, and her brow creased down as she tried to process anything she was hearing.

“Explain yourself,” she finally said, causing Sarah to laugh a bit. “Why are you here? And who,” Dia added on, eyes moving over to the other girl, “is this?”

“This,” Sarah replied, tossing an arm around her companion, who didn’t entirely seem to appreciate the gesture, “is my sister. You two have met before, actually, although I’m not surprised you don’t recognize her. She’s grown a lot since then.” Dia stared at Sarah's sister for another moment before her creased brow suddenly relaxed and, very quickly, she gave a sheepish nod.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry. It’s good to see you again…”

“Leah,” Leah said.

“Leah-san,” Dia repeated. “That still doesn’t answer why you’re here, though,” she added on, turning her attention back to Sarah, who was full-on grinning by this point.

“Always so formal with you, isn’t it?” Sarah teased. “Even more so now that you’ve got the fancy desk and the fancy office, I’d imagine. But I guess you’re probably pretty busy, so I won’t waste too much of your time: I’m here with a business opportunity.”

“A business opportunity,” Dia repeated incredulously.

“That’s right,” Sarah said. “See, Leah and I are forming a new duo.” Upon hearing that, Dia honestly didn’t know how to react. Sarah had been working a solo career as a Magical Girl- quite successfully, Dia might have added- for close to four years at this point. That was how Dia had first met her, actually. Though Sarah lived in Hakodate, and typically worked out of there, she had ended up in Tokyo a few times in the past, typically for large promotional events. Dia had worked with her back then, and had even gotten close with her during that time. Close enough that it was strange to see Sarah in her office now. Leah, however, had never had any involvement in the Magical Girl scene before, at least to the best of Dia’s knowledge.

“Well, I’m happy for you,” Dia ended up replying. “That still fails to explain what you’re doing in my office.”

“Come on, Dia,” Sarah replied, causing Dia’s skin to bristle. “I know you’re not actually this dense. We’re a Magical Girl duo, you’re a manager at a sleek Tokyo agency. Do the math.”

“You already have representation.”

“ _Had_ representation,” Sarah said, raising a finger to correct Dia. “Hakodate’s gotten too small for me, let alone for both of us. As long as we were starting up a new project anyway, I figured this was the perfect time to jump ship. A now I’m giving you the exclusive first dibs on signing us. Give us two months, and between your management prowess and our natural talent Saint Snow will become a household name.”

“Saint Snow,” Dia repeated. “Awfully on the nose there, isn’t it?”

“Building a brand’s important. You should know that as well as anybody.”

“Be that as it may,” Dia insisted, “we’re not exactly looking to sign new talent at the moment. We have our hands full as is.”

“Full with what?” Sarah replied. “The single group you manage right now?” Dia’s eyebrows twitched down in frustration at that, though she couldn’t exactly dispute the point. “If you ever want to get this agency off the ground, and I mean _really_ get it off the ground, make it self-sufficient instead of just a little vanity project being propped up by the Oharas’ family money, you’re gonna have to start taking on new clients eventually. And I’m dropping a golden opportunity into your lap.”

“Even if we _were_ looking for more talent right now,” Dia insisted, continuing to double down on her refusal, “you’re hardly the first person I would ask. No offense.”

“None taken,” Sarah replied. Dia was doing her best to keep her expression stern and unflinching, though no matter how intimidating she might have been trying to look Sarah was still just grinning back at her, not seeming bothered in the slightest. And Dia felt her foothold on the conversation slipping even more when Sarah looked towards Leah, waving towards the doorway. “Could you give us the room for a moment?” she asked. “I want to talk to Dia alone.”

“We’ve been in Tokyo all of a day and you’re already trying to sleep your way to the top,” Leah muttered back. “I expected better from you, onee-san.” With that Leah moved for the door, and Dia’s cheeks immediately flushed red while Sarah just grinned at her sister’s joke- at least, Dia _hoped_ it was a joke. Sarah and Dia both watched Leah leave, and it was only once the door was closed that they finally returned their eyes to each other.

“Let’s cut the crap, Dia,” Sarah said. “You and I both know why I came here first.”

“And that alone is reason enough for me to refuse the offer,” Dia replied. “You know mixing business with your personal life is never a good idea.”

“If you really believed that you wouldn’t be working at _Ohara_ Incorporated,” Sarah replied.

“Mari is a _friend_. That’s different.”

“You’re saying I’m not a friend?” Sarah asked, clutching her chest and feigning a gasp. “You wound me, Dia.” And then, letting her smirk return to her face, Sarah walked closer to Dia’s desk, until she was slipping herself up onto the edge of it. “I think of you as a friend, you know. There must be a hundred different agencies in Tokyo that we could have come to. But there’s a reason I chose you.”

“And as I’ve repeatedly said,” Dia started to say, though the sentence was interrupted as Sarah slid around to her side of the desk, still resting herself on the edge of it. She reached a hand out, slender fingers that were cold to the touch brushing against Dia’s cheek and causing her breath to catch in her throat. Sarah’s eyes pierced right into her own, and Sarah’s lips curled up into a smile that made Dia’s chest constrict, heart skipping a beat.

“Come on, Dia,” Sarah urged, her voice dropping down to something that was hardly anything more than a whisper. “Do it for old time’s sake. For me.” Dia had always heard that good news came in pairs. She didn’t know whether she could call Kanan Matsuura and Sarah Kazuno walking into her office on the same day good news or not, but whatever those two events were, they were certainly a pair. And, with the first of those events still weighing heavily on her mind, the second was starting to feel, if not like an antidote, then at least like a bottle of gin in the surgical tent of a Civil War battlefield. Dia didn’t know what sort of chaos she was inviting into her life by popping the cap and taking a sip. But if nothing else, she knew the fear she didn’t know was somehow less daunting than the fear she did.

“Very well,” Dia finally said, her own voice hardly any louder than Sarah’s now. “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

**4:03 pm, April 13th, 2030  
** **Minato, Tokyo**

The waiting room of the office building was pristine and immaculate- so much so that it somehow circled back around into being suffocating. The air was the perfect temperature, and the hum of the vents was the only sound to be heard, aside from the occasional lurch of the elevators a short distance away, or the ringing of the receptionist’s phone. The floor to ceiling windows offered a wide view over the rest of the city; impressive on the fifth floor, maybe, but nauseating on the twentieth. The glass was so spotless that it was almost invisible, and the smell of the cleaning chemicals that had accomplished that task still hung heavy in the air.

Sitting in three wide leather chairs that somehow managed to be too soft and too stiff all at the same time were three girls who felt very out of place in their current environment. Ruby’s hands were folded in her lap, fidgeting with each other restlessly, and while Yoshiko and Hanamaru were both sitting beside her, neither of them had spoken in quite some time. Practically since they had first arrived.

It had been precisely fourteen minutes since they had taken their seats, and every one of those minutes had already felt like a year. Their meeting had been scheduled for four pm, which was now three minutes behind them. Those extra three minutes had gone from feeling like years to feeling like centuries.

The relative silence was finally broken by the sound of a door opening at the opposite end of the room. Ruby’s stomach lurched at the sound, and she quickly looked towards the source, Yoshiko and Hanamaru doing the same. There was another woman standing there, dressed in rather formal business attire, looking like she must have been around thirty years old. She had long, dark purple hair, tied into a thick braid and brought forward over one shoulder, and piercing teal eyes that were visible even across the room. She was a woman Ruby recognized quite well, having seen her face plastered on TV screens and magazine covers countless times before. And now she was staring right at her, in the flesh.

“Apologies for making you wait,” Nozomi Toujou said, lips curling up into a smile that, friendly and inviting as it was, still failed to put Ruby at ease. “Ayase-san is ready to see you now.”


	5. 909

**4:06 pm, April 13th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

Ruby had never in her life thought that she would actually get the chance to sit in the office of _the_ Eli Ayase. If the waiting room outside had been showy, the interior of Eli’s office immediately cranked that up to eleven. The office was on the corner of the building, which meant twice as many floor to ceiling windows as the waiting room had held. Eli’s desk was wide, carved from some sort of dark wood that, Ruby had to assume, was expensive and imported. The walls that weren’t windows were covered with photographs, and a wide flatscreen television that was turned off at the moment. Some of the photographs featured Eli herself, some of them featured other members of μ's, and some of them, Ruby noticed, even featured A-RISE.

Eli herself was dressed sharply, just as Nozomi was, wearing a button up shirt and slick blazer that matched her slacks. She looked a bit older than Ruby expected, but she supposed that much made sense. It had been nearly five years since μ's had disbanded and Eli had stepped out of the spotlight. The images of her that were still circulating must have been dated by this point.

Eli was seated behind her desk, while three chairs had been brought out and lined up in front of it, where Ruby, Yoshiko, and Hanamaru were currently sitting. Nozomi, meanwhile, was standing beside Eli’s desk with her arms crossed in front of her, holding a small tablet computer against her torso. It wasn’t clear whether she hadn’t been offered a chair or simply didn’t care for one.

“I have to say,” Eli began, speaking for the first time since Ruby and her friends had taken their seats, “I was startled to hear from you. When I was told I had a message from Ruby Kurosawa I almost thought it must have been a typo. And if I’m understanding correctly, you’re here because you’re looking for representation. Is that accurate?”

“It is,” Ruby replied, nodding in response to Eli’s words. She was still wildly nervous, heart beating a mile a minute, but she was doing her best to keep herself composed in Eli’s presence despite that.

“Speaking honestly, that’s even more surprising,” Eli continued. “Your older sister is the managing partner at Ohara Incorporated, isn’t she? I would have expected you to keep your business in the family.” Ruby tensed when Dia was mentioned, hands clenching tightly in her lap. She was about to respond, though before she could do so Eli raised a hand to silence her. “Forgive me,” she said. “That was out of line.”

“It’s alright,” Ruby replied, though internally she was relieved not to have to explain that.

“All that really matters now,” Eli went on, “is that you’re here. So tell me, what’s drawn you to 909?” The actual answer to that question was very straightforward: they were the best of the best. No other agency in Tokyo could even come closer to comparing. Following the formal breakup of μ's, Eli and Nozomi had founded the agency together, and were now responsible for managing all of the μ's members who were still active. The average person would be lucky to even get an audition, let alone get signed. The fact that Ruby and her friends had managed to get in there without any previous professional Magical Girl experience of their own to showcase was entirely the product of Ruby coasting on her older sister’s reputation, and Ruby herself was well aware of that.

Saying all of that out loud, of course, probably wasn’t the best idea. Ruby was sure Eli must have heard that sort of praise a dozen times a day, and saying that 909’s reputation was the only reason she had come there was shallow and arrogant. Fortunately she had come to this meeting prepared, and she had already rehearsed these answers a hundred times over in her own head.

“I know we’re not exactly the sorts of people that you’re used to having in here,” Ruby began. She didn’t quite look Eli in the eyes as she spoke- looking her in the eyes and keeping her tone steady at the same time was asking just a bit too much. “I know we don’t have impressive careers behind us. We’re new and inexperienced, and we haven’t done anything to prove ourselves yet. But… We have a lot of potential,” she insisted. “We’ve all been working and training hard just in hopes of getting to launch our careers, and with the right guidance and support I think we’ll be able to become incredibly talented and powerful Magical Girls. We all have different strengths and specialties, and given that your agency already works with a wide variety of talent, we think you would be uniquely capable of helping us all to hone our specific skill sets so we can become the best we can possibly be. We really feel that this is the best place for us, and we hope you’ll feel the same.”

It was only once she finished her answer that Ruby realized she hadn’t breathed the entire time she had been speaking, and she was quick to inhale a deep breath the moment she was done. She finally allowed herself to look directly at Eli again as well, though Eli’s expression hadn’t changed at all. Ruby didn’t know what to make of that.

“Do you agree with her?” Eli asked after a moment of pause, though Ruby quickly realized Eli’s eyes were no longer on her. Now, they had turned to Yoshiko instead. “Kurosawa-san mentioned in her message that you would be the leader of this prospective group. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.”

“Eh?” Yoshiko blurted out, clearly caught off guard by the question. Ruby silently cursed herself for agreeing to give Yoshiko the title of leader in the first place, though after another moment Yoshiko managed to pull herself together, back straightening while her expression turned more confident. When she spoke again, her voice was a bit lower than it had been just a moment before.

“I believe Ruby-chan put it better than I ever could,” Yoshiko replied. While this confident Yoshiko might have seemed like an improvement over how flustered she had been a moment ago, Ruby also knew they were _dangerously_ close to straying into fallen angel territory, and she was fully prepared to shatter Yoshiko’s leg under the table if she started to go that route. “We’re all full of unique potential, and this is the best place for us to explore that potential to the fullest. We firmly believe 909 will help us foster our talents better than any other agency possibly could.”

“And you feel the same, Kunikida-san?” Eli asked, turning her eyes down towards the end of the row.

“I do,” Hanamaru replied, nodding slowly as she spoke. “We’ve all worked hard and trained a lot on our own, but… we know we need the help of an agency like yours to realize our true potential, zu-” she said, before cutting herself off at the very end.

“Well,” Eli said, once the line of questioning had been rounded out, “I do think it’s safe to say 909 would be a good place for anyone to foster their talents.” She avoided some level of arrogance by not outright _saying_ that 909 was the premier agency in all of Tokyo, and that anyone would be blessed to land a contract there, but frankly, she didn’t need to. “Of course,” she continued, “we do have a very high standard for the sorts of clients we take on, and quite honestly, it would be incredibly strange for us to sign a group who don’t have any professional experience to speak of.” That definitely sounded bad, but Ruby sensed a “but” coming. Eli wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of calling them in for an interview just to reject them this quickly.

“However,” Eli went on, causing Ruby to breathe out a quiet sigh of relief, “I have to admit, I’m quite curious to see what the younger sister of Dia Kurosawa is capable of. It doesn’t hurt that you already have quite a bit of name recognition, either.” It was, in a way, frustrating to Ruby to know that her connection to the same sister who refused to support her was the only thing that had gotten her a foot in the door with 909 in the first place. But as long as she had the advantage, it would be stupid not to use it.

“I promise you, if you give me the chance I’ll show that I can live up to her reputation,” Ruby said.

“I’d like very much to believe that,” Eli replied. “But of course-”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Nozomi suddenly cut in, causing everyone to look towards her- though her own eyes were now focused on the tablet in her hands. “ASN just reported a Silence sighting during their patrol of Akihabara. They’re engaging it now.”

“How fortuitous,” Eli replied, lips curling up into a reserved smile. “Bring it up on the TV, would you?”

“Of course,” Nozomi said. And then, with a few more taps of her tablet, the TV mounted on the office’s wall lit up, showing the feed from a local news station reporting on the scene. Everyone in the room turned to look towards it, and Ruby’s eyes went wide as she watched what happened next.

The footage was being filmed from a distance, and as such the picture quality was a bit low, and the audio was practically nonexistent, but it was still easy enough for Ruby to clearly make out what was happening. A winged, bird-like Silence had emerged over Akihabara and was flying low over the streets, causing chaos as the civilians below attempted to flee. The Silence swerved upward suddenly, gaining a tremendous amount of height, before pivoting 180 degrees and dive-bombing towards the ground. It descended so quickly that Ruby found herself holding her breath, sitting on the edge of her seat, but just as it was about to strike at the crowd below it slammed, full force, into a barrier that had appeared with split-second precision.

Hanayo Koizumi was the first recognizable face to appear on the screen, filling Ruby with the same rush of awed excitement she always did. Ruby adored every member of µ's, of course, and they had all been instrumental in her love of Magical Girls, but Hanayo was _the_ reason she had wanted to become a magical girl herself in the first place. Ruby had spent countless hours glued to the TV when she had been younger, watching every battle Hanayo had ever fought, every interview she had ever done, learning all there was to know about her. When she thought about it from that perspective, it became all the more surreal that she was actually sitting in Eli Ayase’s office right now.

Seconds after Hanayo had appeared she was joined by two other faces that were just as recognizable: Nico Yazawa and Rin Hoshizora, both former members of µ's, and both current members of the trio After School Navigators, alongside Hanayo herself. And with the team fully assembled, the Silence they were fighting didn’t stand a chance.

Fractions of a second after the Silence impacted the barrier Hanayo had summoned, the barrier itself warped and twisted upward, changing from a flat sheet into a tight sphere that closed back in on itself and trapped the Silence inside. Nico flew up underneath it, thrusting a fist into the air, and as she did so a much larger fist, made of sparkling pink energy and easily twenty times the size of her actual hand, materialized and flew upward as well, slamming into the barrier with an impact Ruby could feel even from the other side of the TV screen. The sphere was sent flying skyward, with the Silence still trapped inside, where Rin was prepared to receive it.

Rin came flying in from high above, arms raised high overhead, a pair of long, shimmering, razor-sharp claws forming along her fingers. As she reached the sphere Rin slashed her claws down in a cross pattern, and an X-shaped blast of energy flew from her hands, cutting downward and slicing through the barrier sphere and the Silence like they were both nothing. Rin’s attack cut through the monstrous bird like scissors through a paper crane, and mere seconds after the trio had arrived on the scene, the Silence was already defeated.

“It’s convenient that this happened when it did,” Eli said, finally causing Ruby to pull her eyes away from the screen again, reminding her of where she actually was. “I’m sure you’re no stranger to the groups we represent here, but seeing them in action is a good reminder of the level of talent we strive for here at 909.” Eli wasn’t just stroking her own ego by saying that either; seeing After School Navigators fight was a harsh reminder of just how unreachable the level of a professional Magical Girl could be. They were miles above a more wet behind the ears group like Three Mermaids, let alone the untrained, untested group of amateurs Ruby had managed to cobble together. But she couldn’t let that deter her.

“I understand that,” she said. “And I know that it might take us some time before we’re performing at that level. But with the right support, and the right training… I really believe we can get there.” Eli’s eyes landed on Ruby as she spoke, and once again, Ruby found it positively impossible to read what the woman was thinking. After a few more seconds, though, she nodded, and Ruby could only hope that was a good thing.

“Normally,” Eli began, “I wouldn’t do something like this. But if I’m being honest, you’ve piqued my curiosity, and your confidence is inspiring. Nozomi,” she said, suddenly glancing sideways towards her assistant. “How out of practice are you feeling? I know it’s been a while.”

“Not terrible,” Nozomi replied. “Though certainly not up to my best.”

“That’s probably for the better,” Eli chuckled, before returning her attention to Ruby. “I’d like to see what you’re capable of. And, to that end, I’d like to set you up on an audition with Nozomi, to see your talents in action. Would tomorrow afternoon work for you?” The question caught Ruby so off guard that for a moment she didn’t even know how to respond, just sitting there with a wide-eyed, vaguely gawking expression as she tried to process that she had _actually_ just been offered the chance to audition for 909, and for Nozomi Toujou. After a second or two, though, she finally pulled herself together enough to hastily nod, blurting out a response just a bit too frantically.

“O-Of course!” she replied. “We- We would be honored!”

“Excellent,” Eli replied, folding her hands in front of her as she smiled back at Ruby from across the desk. “I’m very much looking forward to it.”

* * *

**6:12 pm, April 13th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (Downstairs), Minato, Tokyo**

“Rin got _forty-three_ requests for photos today! That makes her the winner!”

“Whatever. The only reason more people didn’t ask me was because I looked busy, since I was actually _doing my job_.”

“Awww, don’t be a sore loser, Nico-chan!”

“I’m not a sore loser! I didn’t even technically lose!” Nico Yazawa shot a harsh glare towards Rin as her teammate skipped ahead of her, entering back into the offices of their agency, though the dirty look didn’t seem to dampen Rin’s spirits. Nico, Rin, and Hanayo had just arrived back at 909’s offices after being out on patrol for several hours; they had stayed out for a while after the incident in Akihabara, though no other Silence had appeared after that, and their time had simply been spent meeting fans and posing for photos. Not exactly unusual, in the day of the life of a professional Magical Girl.

All three members of After School Navigators were still dressed in their Magical Girl uniforms, colorful, frilly dresses bouncing with each step they took, though as Rin led the trio across the lobby she suddenly spun on her heels and did a full 360 twirl, and with a flash and a shimmer her outfit dissipated, leaving her in the far simpler, far more practical sweatshirt and leggings she had been wearing earlier in the day. Nico and Hanayo followed suit (albeit with far less flourish), and by the time they reached the other side of the lobby all three women were back in their normal outfits once more.

The trio piled into the elevator at the back of the lobby after that, allowing it to take them higher up into the building. 909 owned the entire space, all twenty floors of it, and while many of those floors were filled with offices for their extensive staff, there were quite a few other facilities as well: a workout center that covered the entirety of the fourth floor, small dining areas on every floor and fully-staffed cafeterias on the ninth and fifteenth, a game room on the eleventh, and, perhaps most importantly, several lounge areas for the agency’s many hardworking staff members. Rin had opted for the lounge on the nineteenth floor, leaving them standing there in the elevator for quite some time before it finally reached its destination. And when they did, and the doors opened, she discovered they weren’t going to be alone. Three other people were already sitting in the lounge, poised in the wide, comfortable arm-chairs, all facing each other and, apparently, mid-conversation: Honoka Kousaka, Umi Sonoda, and Maki Nishikino. Three more of µ's’ former members.

“Gasp!” Rin said, rather than actually gasping as she bounced her way off the elevator. “Hello, friends!” Whatever conversation Umi, Honoka, and Maki had actually been having was interrupted as they looked towards the new arrivals, though it didn’t seem as though it had been especially important anyway.

“Welcome back,” Umi said. “Did you have a good patrol?”

“If you have to ask that you very clearly weren’t paying attention to the news,” Nico huffed.

“We weren’t,” Maki replied.

“What about you three?” Hanayo asked, approaching one of the open chairs and sitting down, enjoying finally getting to take the weight off her feet after having been out for the better part of the day. “Were you on patrol together today?”

“Those two were,” Maki answered, gesturing towards Honoka and Umi. “I was working solo again.”

“You guys should get over here, though!” Honoka added on, hastily motioning Nico and Rin forward, given that they hadn’t reached the open seats quite as quickly Hanayo had. “I was just telling these two something interesting!”

“Count Rin in! She’s always up for some good gossip!” Rin said, scurrying her way over towards the rest of the group, and even Nico seemed interested, raising an eyebrow as she approached.

“This had better be something good,” she insisted. “Full offense, but half the time your ‘secrets’ are lame as hell.”

“I never said it was a secret!” Honoka retorted. “And it _is_ good! Listen!” Glancing around at the rest of the group one more time to make sure she had everyone’s attention, Honoka continued with her story. “After Umi-chan and I got back from our patrol I went up to Eli-chan’s office to check about our schedule for the rest of the week, and you’ll never guess what I saw!”

“She’s having an affair!” Rin gasped.

“That isn’t- Why is _that_ your first thought?” Maki scolded. “No, she wasn’t having an affair.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Rin said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “She and Nozomi-chan are so perfect for each other, Rin would be heartbroken if anything happened to them!”

“Isn’t their marriage open anyway?” Nico added on. “How can you even have an affair if you both already-”

“Can we _please_ focus?” Umi groaned. “Honoka-chan. You were saying?”

“Right, right!” Honoka said, nodding enthusiastically as the attention returned to her. “I went up to her office to check in with her, and I saw… Nozomi-chan, leading three other girls out!” Honoka delivered that with the sort of dramatic tone that made it sound like it was supposed to be a shocking revelation, and as such, the blank stares of her coworkers surely weren’t providing the reactions she had been hoping for. A second or two passed in silence, before Maki spoke up.

“And?”

“ _And_ ,” Honoka replied, “think about what that means! There’s only one reason Eli-chan would be meeting with a whole group like that!”

“You think 909 is picking up another group?” Maki asked.

“But… Eli-chan said the agency wasn’t looking to acquire any more new talent right now,” Hanayo added.

“Which is exactly what makes this so shocking!” Honoka insisted. “Whoever they are, they must be important enough for Eli-chan to go back on that!”

“ _Or_ we’re just getting ahead of ourselves,” Umi cut in. “For all we know it was nothing. They could have been a group from another agency discussing a cross-promotional opportunity. Or maybe they weren’t even Magical Girls at all.”

“Right, right,” Rin agreed. “Maybe they were door-to-door knife salesmen.” Very much not what Umi had been suggesting, but she let it slide.

“Why won’t you guys believe me about this?” Honoka huffed, expression turning indignant as all the other theories were tossed around. “I’m telling you, Eli-chan was scouting someone new!”

“Personally I _hope_ she was,” Nico said, finally walking over to one of the free chairs so she could throw herself down into it. “Things have been getting awfully boring around here lately.”

“You just want some bright-eyed newbies you can flex in front of,” Maki chided.

“Do not!” Nico protested. “It’s not like that! We haven’t gotten anyone new around here in ages. And the more people we have the better. Helps fill in the empty spots.” Maki stared back at Nico as she said that, and she wasn’t the only one. Everyone was suddenly looking towards Nico, and an uneasy silence fell over the group at her words. They all knew exactly what she meant by that, even if she didn’t outright say it.

“I think the empty spots have been suitably filled by now,” Umi eventually said, the slightest hint of an edge to her tone. “909 has hired dozens of groups over the past five years.”

“Yeah, well,” Nico replied, “it still feels weird. So maybe things are just always gonna be that way.” Nobody wanted to agree with Nico when she said that. But nobody seemed capable of speaking up to disagree with her either.

* * *

**9:58 pm local time, April 13th, 2030  
** **(4:58 am, April 14th, 2030 Tokyo Time)  
** **Paris, France**

Earlier in the night, the outside of the theater had been swarmed with a wall to wall line of photographers as various popular models and designers alike made their way across the red carpet on their way into the building. By now many of those photographers had dispersed, though a few still remained, flashbulbs lighting up the night any time someone came or went. The woman exiting the theater now was no exception.

The woman put on her practiced, photogenic smile as she stepped out of the theater and made her way down the stairs, stilettos navigating each step with ease, and as photographers called her name she did her best to look towards each of them and give a small wave to the camera. At the bottom of the stairs a black car was already parked along the curb, lights on, engine idling as it waited for her.

The woman looked back over her shoulder as she reached the car, and gave one last smile to the cameras before opening the door to the backseat and disappearing inside. The moment she shut the door again the outside world seemed to vanish, sounds becoming more distant, lights becoming more muted through the tinted windows. In the front seat the driver was already tapping the GPS, and he looked up to make eye contact with his passenger through the rearview mirror.

“De retour à la maison, Mademoiselle?” he asked.

“Oui, merci,” the woman replied, and without another word the car started to move. Even once it had gotten out onto the main street and picked up speed it was still quiet on the interior, the hum of the engine and the whirring of the tires all suitably muffled. With how loud it had been at the fashion show, the woman was quite thankful for that.

As the car slowly brought her back home she reached down into her purse and took her phone out, seeing that quite a few notifications had accumulated while she had been busy. Some were in French while others were in Japanese, though they all looked equally unimportant, and one by one she started swiping away at the various spam emails and social media DMs, keeping an eye out for anything that might have _actually_ been relevant. It was only towards the end that her attention was finally caught, by a headline from a news app she had downloaded to keep her up to date on the happenings back in Tokyo: “AFTER SCHOOL NAVIGATORS THWART SILENCE ATTACK IN AKIHABARA.” For a moment the woman stared down at the notification, and then she tapped it, pulling up the story in full. And, as a photograph of three of her old friends sprung up on her screen, floating in the air in the middle of Akihabara, wearing the same sorts of Magical Girl costumes that had once felt so familiar to her, a nostalgic, wistful smile tugged at the corners of Kotori Minami’s lips.


	6. Rising Stars

**2:02 pm, April 14th, 2030  
** **909 Training Grounds, Minato, Tokyo**

Ruby had seen this place in promotional photos and behind-the-scenes videos before, though she had never thought she would actually get to stand there in person. The training grounds where 909’s various groups practiced their combat skills was a wide-open space, surrounded on all sides by high concrete walls, while the floor was made of a similar material. Two chain-link walls cut through the center, perpendicular to each other, and split the space into four equal-sized arenas, making it feel sort of like a tennis court, though far more featureless.

Ruby was standing at one end of one of the four arenas, with Hanamaru and Yoshiko beside her, while Nozomi Toujou was standing at the other end across from them. Unlike the previous day, when she had been dressed in her formal business attire, Nozomi was now dressed far more casually, wearing a tanktop and a pair of athletic leggings. Ruby and her cohort were dressed similarly, though that wasn’t going to stay the case for long.

“Alright!” Nozomi called out to them, voice projecting to carry across the space. “Are you ready to start?”

“We’re ready!” Yoshiko called back, though Ruby really didn’t know if she could agree with that sentiment. She had spent countless hours practicing on her own, sure, honing her skills and refining her techniques, teaching herself new spells and new attacks. But doing those sorts of things in the privacy and the comfort of her own home was far different from doing those things in front of an audience- let alone an audience like _Nozomi fucking Toujou_. Add on the fact that Ruby knew her potential of a future career at 909 was riding on this, and she was understandably nervous.

“Let’s get started, then,” Nozomi replied. “Beginning with your transformations. Be sure to wow me!”

“R-Right!” Ruby said, pushing her fists together and nodding her head, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. In another moment the arena started to fill with vibrant lights and flashes of color- not just from Ruby, but from Hanamaru and Yoshiko as well. Radiant twirls and sparkles engulfed the three of them, and clothing that hadn’t been there a moment prior started to materialize on their bodies. They were outfits of their own design, and Ruby had spent a tremendous amount of time perfecting her own, making sure it matched the image she wanted to put forward. She had spent countless hours just standing in front of the mirror, tweaking each little bit of the attire until she could finally get it perfect. Even now, she still wasn’t sure she had accomplished that task.

As the lights finally began to clear Ruby, Yoshiko, and Hanamaru became more visible again, and their outfits along with them, although the first of the many challenges their group was surely going to face was already presenting itself: the utter lack of cohesion. Hanamaru and Ruby were at least a bit more coordinated, outfits more in line with what someone would typically expect from a pair of Magical Girls. Even then, though, there was a noticeable enough difference, Ruby’s outfit more aggressively cutesy with hearts and ribbons and gems adorning its vibrantly colored fabric, while Hanamaru’s was far simpler, far more understated. Both of those outfits posed a sharp contrast to Yoshiko, however, whose dark attire, framed with black feathers and a pair of small decorative wings coming off her back, made her look like she was a part of a different unit entirely.

This lack of cohesion certainly hadn’t escaped Nozomi’s attention, and the moment the transformations were complete she was looking at each of her interviewees carefully- based on her narrowed eyes and the small downward twitch of her mouth, she didn’t look thrilled by what she was seeing.

“Independently, your outfits all look quite good,” she said, causing Ruby to wince as she braced for the “but” she knew was coming. “But as a unit… We’ll have to do some work on this. It’s manageable, though,” she said, before she clapped her hands together, a wide smile spreading over her face. “Now… Let’s get to the fun part. Come at me with everything you’ve got. Don’t hold back!”

When Nozomi said that Ruby was shocked for a moment, and she looked over towards Yoshiko and Hanamaru to see them in a similar state of surprise and confusion. She’d known they were going to be showcasing their powers and their skills somehow, certainly, but she hadn’t been expecting Nozomi to want them to just _attack_ her like that.

“Are you sure?” Hanamaru finally asked, putting voice to the question that was hovering in all of their minds.

“I’m sure,” Nozomi replied, still smiling as she spoke. “I can defend myself well enough, so don’t worry about hurting me. Pretend that I’m a Silence, and you’re trying to kill me. Show no mercy!” Ruby was still a little uncertain, though after another a moment another part of her brain kicked in, telling her it was probably arrogant to think that she would be capable of putting a scratch on _the_ Nozomi Toujou even if she _was_ trying her hardest. With that in mind she steeled her resolve, nodding her head and creasing her brow down.

“Alright,” she said, lowering her voice enough that she was only talking to Hanamaru and Yoshiko. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” Yoshiko said.

“Ready,” Hanamaru agreed.

“Maru-chan, you open,” Ruby murmured, all too aware of Nozomi’s eyes on her as she hatched their strategy. “Yoshiko-chan, corral her from there. I’ll try to follow up with a real attack.”

“Right,” Hanamaru agreed, before turning her attention towards Nozomi. “Now?”

“Now,” Ruby said. And then their battle was beginning.

“Cherry Blossom Petal Shower!” Hanamaru shouted, raising her arms up as she spoke, twisting them in a wide circle in front of herself. At her words the first attack of their battle appeared, three or four dozen small, flickering pink lights materializing in the air in front of her. Each one was the rough size and shape of a flower petal, and for a split second they merely stayed suspended where they were, before all at once they rushed forward and started to fly towards Nozomi. Nozomi watched as the flower petals approached, and she seemed prepared to respond to the attack. As they got closer she jumped backwards, soaring along the ground with a supernatural disregard for gravity. That ultimately proved to be a wise decision as well, given that, the moment the flower petals reached the spot where she had been standing, they began to detonate, each one exploding with a bright flash and a burst of energy, quickly tearing apart the air where Nozomi had been standing.

While Nozomi may have avoided the first attack well enough, though, she had only put herself exactly where her opponents wanted her in doing so. Yoshiko’s eyes were following her carefully, and the moment Nozomi touched back down on the ground Yoshiko clapped her own hands together in front of her chest, the feathers on her dress ruffling as she channeled her energy. “Demonic Hand Imprisonment!”

At Yoshiko’s beckoning a dark ring appeared on the ground just behind Nozomi, capturing Nozomi’s attention as well. She was still carrying her momentum, sliding backwards across the concrete, and as she got closer to the ring it flickered before, all at once, thirteen dark hands reached up from inside, stretching out towards Nozomi and grabbing at her. One of them managed to grasp against her ankle, and Nozomi was just barely able to vault herself back into the air in time, leaving the hands clutching at the space where she had been just a moment before. But now Nozomi was up in the air, and that was exactly what Ruby had been counting on.

“Crystal Minefield!” Ruby shouted, stretching her arms through the space in front of her in a wide arc. As she did so dozens of glimmering lights started to form behind Nozomi, following the curve of Ruby’s hands. The lights quickly took the form of small red crystals, floating in the air in the exact spot Nozomi was still soaring backwards towards, and it was clear Nozomi wouldn't be able to adjust her trajectory at this point. Perfect. Closing her palms and pulling her hands back towards her body, Ruby shouted her next command. “Detonate!”

All at once the crystals exploded with the same violent vibrance Hanamaru’s flower petals had, and this time Nozomi didn’t have a chance to dodge. The explosion caught her full-on, throwing her back towards the ground, and she hit the concrete with a tremendous amount of force, sending her rolling along the ground. Ruby almost felt concerned for her, though she also remembered what Nozomi had said: “Don’t worry about hurting me. Show no mercy.” Yoshiko was already doing just that.

“Hand of Baphomet!” Once more, upon Yoshiko’s command, a hand started to come up from the ground, though this time it was different from the thirteen hands that had reached up before. Now it was a single hand, practically as large as Nozomi’s entire body, and decidedly less human-looking, with twisted knuckles and pointed claws. It came up right underneath Nozomi and, given that Nozomi was still tumbling across the concrete, she didn’t have time to avoid it. Monstrous fingers closed in around her and seized her tight, lifting her higher into the air while Hanamaru came in for a followup.

“White Azalea B-!” Hanamaru started to say, before Nozomi interrupted her.

“Dianic Impact!” she shouted. And then she clapped her hands together, and the entire arena was filled with a blinding flash and a deafening blast.

Ruby didn’t have a chance to react before the shockwave hit her. Practically the instant Nozomi’s hands clapped together her vision was washed out by an all-engulfing silver flash, and then Ruby felt force colliding against her like a wall, knocking her off her feet and sending her flying backwards. Ruby yelped out in pain as she slammed against the ground, barely able to tuck herself into a good position in time, and even once she’d hit the concrete she continued tumbling until she felt the chain link fence breaking her trajectory, nearly knocking the wind out of her in the process. Even once she’d come to a stop Ruby’s entire body was aching, and she realized she’d been left with several abrasions along her arms and knees that would need to be patched up after they were finished.

Blinking her eyes open she realized her vision was blurry, still recovering from the flash, and the midday sun beating down overhead felt harsh against the headache she had suddenly developed. She looked around the arena to spot her teammates, and found that Yoshiko and Hanamaru had both ended up in a similar state, knocked off their feet and slammed against the walls in their respective directions. And then Ruby’s eyes moved to Nozomi, who was now back on her own two feet in the center of the arena, looking utterly unscathed.

“It’s not enough just to rush at me with attack after attack, you know,” Nozomi chided, raising a finger up as she spoke, like she was lecturing them. “You have to be able to dodge and block and defend yourselves as well, or else you’ll just end up getting killed in your very first battle. The fact that I was able to take you all out with a single attack like this… It’s honestly truly pathetic,” she said, and Ruby felt like Nozomi might as well have just come over and stomped directly onto her chest. Her heart dropped down into stomach as she realized she was watching her chance for a career with 909 slip away, as she realized how _foolish_ and _arrogant_ she must have been to think she had a shot here in the first place- until Nozomi continued speaking.

“However…” she went on. “The fact that you managed to put me in a position where I had to use a move like that is impressive, especially coming from a trio of amateurs with no formal experience to speak of. If this is what you’re capable of just from practicing on your own, I can’t wait to see wait you’ll be able to accomplish with some proper training and a dedicated support staff behind you.” Ruby heard those words, but for a few long seconds she wasn’t sure she had actually processed them. Even once she _did_ start to feel like she knew what Nozomi had said, a part of her still didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to jump to any conclusions until she was absolutely, positively sure.

“Then… What are you…” she managed to say, afraid to even ask the question in full. But as Ruby spoke Nozomi looked back at her, and smiled.

“Welcome to 909,” she responded, before tilting her head to the side. “What did you say your group’s name is, again?”

“Yohane’s Little Demons!” Yoshiko proudly declared, though the answer merely caused Nozomi to laugh.

“We’ll workshop that.”

* * *

**2:33 pm, April 14th, 2030  
** **Ohara Incorporated Training Grounds, Nakano, Tokyo**

“Pick up the pace! You shouldn’t be getting tired out this early!”

“This early?? We’ve been at this for seven hours!”

“And you’ll be at it another seven hours if you keep bitching.” That sort of exchange had been commonplace throughout the day. When Three Mermaids had first been introduced to Kanan Matsuura they had seemed excited about the prospect of a new trainer, and they were all looking forward to starting on their new regimen. That excitement had quickly faded when they realized just how brutal Kanan was going to be with them.

Three Mermaids were currently running laps of the training ground, building up stamina and endurance, and while You and Riko at least had the good sense to keep their mouths shut and not complain about the grueling ordeal they were being put through, the same couldn’t be said for Chika.

“When are we gonna get to the exciting stuff?” she whined, finally stopping to double over with her hands on her knees- You would say she was trying to catch her breath, but the fact that she was still running her mouth spoke counter to that. “We haven’t even touched magic all day!”

“Fun stuff?” Kanan repeated, eyes narrowing as she walked closer to where Chika had stopped. “Sorry. I thought making sure you don’t _die in battle_ was about as fun as it gets. But if you’d rather ignore my training and get yourself killed then by all means, be my guest.”

“Just let us practice our spells, or work on new attacks or something!” Chika protested. “That’s important too!”

“You can work on your magic once you work on your bodies,” Kanan insisted. “The strongest spell in the world doesn’t mean shit if you drop dead as soon as you use it.”

While You and Riko had both slowed their pace to watch this conversation as it unfolded, they weren’t the only ones who were observing it; from a walkway higher up, circling around the edge of the training ground, Sarah and Leah Kazuno were watching as well. And while Sarah at least looked amused, Leah seemed largely unimpressed.

“What do you think?” Sarah asked, glancing sideways at her sister.

“I think they’re a bunch of no-talent amateurs,” Leah replied, turning her nose up at the scene unfolding below her. That caused Sarah to laugh, before lightly elbowing her sister in the side.

“Be nice,” she insisted. “From here on out they’re our coworkers.” Leah’s expression made it clear how distasteful she found that thought, though she was good enough to bite her tongue rather than saying as much outright. Sarah turned her attention back down to the training grounds and watched Three Mermaids for a few more seconds, but before long her attention was stolen by the sound of footsteps coming from the end of the walkway. Glancing towards them she saw Dia approaching, and an even wider smile quickly appeared on her face.

“Afternoon, Dia,” she said, the overly-familiar name once again earning her an immediate look of irritation. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I’ve finalized your contracts,” Dia replied. “If you two aren’t in the middle of anything, I’d like to see you in my office so we can sign them.”

“You really don’t waste time around here, do you?” Sarah chuckled, before tossing an arm around Leah’s shoulders. “Ready to become an _official_ part of the Ohara Incorporated family?”

“Sure,” Leah muttered back. “Might as well get this over with.”

* * *

**2:39 pm, April 14th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

“...and then one more signature here.”

“Roger roger.”

“Sign and date here.”

“Got it.”

“And one last signature here.”

“That everything?”

“It is,” Dia said, watching Sarah and Leah finish signing their names before she moved to take their contracts, pulling them back across her desk. “With that, Saint Snow is an officially registered Magical Girl unit of Ohara Incorporated. Welcome to our company.”

“Hooray!” Mari cheered, clapping her hands together vigorously as she perched herself on the edge of Dia’s desk, in the way she seemed so fond of doing. “Welcome, welcome! We’re going to celebrate now, right?” she asked, turning her attention to Dia. “Fancy dinner? Drinks?”

“It’s 2:40 pm,” Dia replied.

“Goodness, is it? I’ve been drunk longer than I thought.” Shooting another glare at what she _hoped_ was a joke, Dia then returned her attention to Sarah and Leah.

“It’s going to be a bit longer before we can get you tied into our normal day to day operations,” she said. “Setting up training schedules and patrol schedules, media appearances, those sorts of things. Rest assured I’ll expedite the process as much as I possibly can, though.”

“We’re already on your payroll regardless, right?” Sarah teased back. “So by all means, take your time.”

“Truly the sort of work ethic I want to see from our newest employees,” Dia sighed. “Regardless, that’s all I needed you for. You’re free to return to whatever you were doing.”

“Aww, not gonna pop open the champagne to really welcome us in?” Sarah asked. “Maybe I overestimated just how cushy the digs around here actually are.”

“And maybe I overestimated how much this agency actually needs new talent,” Dia replied. “I’d recommend you leave before I reconsider.”

“Whatever you say, paper tiger,” Sarah said, flashing Dia an infuriating wink before looking over at her sister. “Back to the training grounds?”

“To watch?” Leah asked. “Or to train?”

“Your choice.”

“To train. I want to show those amateurs up.”

“Lead the way!” Sarah said, following along behind her sister as Leah exited the room. Dia watched them both go, and once they were gone she started to look down at their contracts to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, though before she got the chance Mari was chiming in again.

“All signed and official, hmm?” she asked. “I guess there’s really no going back on it now.” Her words made Dia’s brow crease, corner of her mouth twitching down as she looked back up at Mari.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Maybe it is,” Mari hummed, eyes still lingering on the doorway. “Exes can be dangerous territory. Having them around can be messy.” Dia wanted to point out the hypocrisy in that, though she supposed both of these things were ultimately her fault. Instead her argument went a different direction.

“We never dated.”

“No, of course you didn’t,” Mari agreed. “We lived in Tokyo and she lived in Hakodate. You were just her out of town booty call.”

“It wasn’t that either.”

“It either was just sex or it wasn’t,” Mari chuckled. “You can’t have your cake and fuck it too.” Dia grit her teeth together in annoyance at that, but she also realized there was no good way out of this argument. Better to just shift the focus.

“If you thought I was making a mistake by signing her you had every opportunity to stop me,” she pointed out. “This is still _your_ agency, as you’re always so quick to point out.”

“Perhaps,” Mari agreed. “But if you spend your life ushering a child away from electrical sockets they’ll only grow more curious. Sometimes you just have to let them stick a fork in there and learn for themselves.”

“Please don’t ever have children.” Mari simply laughed in response to that, slipping off the edge of Dia’s desk and beginning to stroll towards the door herself.

“Don’t you worry,” Mari said, waving a hand over her shoulder as she spoke. “I don’t think I could even if I wanted to. I doubt my body’s held up well enough.” Dia frowned at that, though she didn’t say anything until Mari reached her doorway and turned around, looking at her once again. “I was serious about drinks tonight, by the way,” she added on. “Although… Maybe just the two of us. Getting you and Sarah-chan drunk around each other seems like a recipe for a disaster.”

“Pass,” Dia replied. “I have more than enough work on my plate at the moment. I’ll likely be here late.”

“Suit yourself,” Mari hummed, slipping past the doorway and into the hall. “But I’ll be around. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

* * *

**4:15 pm, April 14th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

Dia hadn’t left her office- or even stood up from her desk, for that matter- since Mari had left earlier. Onboarding a new group was quite the process, and more and more so it was looking like she was going to be there late into the night trying to sort through all the paperwork so she could get Saint Snow started as soon as possible. The work was starting to get draining enough that a visitor was a welcome distraction at this point, and when Dia heard a knock against her door frame she was actually thankful to have an excuse to take a break for a few minutes. That mood changed very quickly when she saw who was standing there.

Ruby had just entered into the room- and given that she and Dia hadn’t spoken since their fight two days earlier that already would have been cause enough for Dia to grow nervous. Those thoughts didn’t even enter Dia’s mind, however, thanks to the condition Ruby was in. Her hair was messy, clothing a bit dirty, and there was a visible bruise on one leg, a scrape on the opposite arm, bandages plastered over her skin in a few places. She looked like she’d been in a fight, and immediately upon seeing that Dia was jumping up out of her seat.

“Ruby!” she blurted out, rushing out from behind her desk and towards her sister. “What happened to you? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Ruby insisted, words short, tone curt. She didn’t seem nearly as concerned as Dia did, and as Dia tried to get closer to look over her injuries Ruby’s hand quickly swatted her away. Dia took a step backwards, face twisting into a frown at the unusual reaction.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“It’s just a few bumps,” Ruby replied. “It’s nothing.”

“How did this happen?” Dia insisted. “Did you get attacked?”

“No. I fell,” Ruby lied. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“This clearly wasn’t just from a fall. Tell me what really-”

“I’m becoming a Magical Girl.” Ruby’s words left her mouth with a sternness and conviction that Dia wasn’t used to hearing out of her sister, and for a moment she was taken aback, before she let out a long sigh.

“This again?” she asked. “I thought I made myself clear last time. We’re not-”

“I wasn’t asking your permission,” Ruby interrupted again, eyes locking on Dia’s as she spoke. “I’m telling you. I had an audition with 909 today. They signed me.” Ruby’s words brought an immediate silence to the room, and for the few seconds that followed the two sisters simply stood there, eyes locked onto each other, Ruby’s expression remaining one of unflinching determination while Dia’s looked stunned, gears slowly turning as she tried to process what her sister had said. And then, bit by bit, Dia’s eyebrows arched down, her nostrils flared out, her jaw tightened, and she became _furious_.

“You _what?_ ”

“I accepted a contract with 909,” Ruby repeated. “I’m going to become a professional Magical Girl. Working for them.”

“You went behind my back,” Dia seethed. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

“You wouldn’t have let me go if I had.”

“Of course I wouldn’t have!” Dia snapped. “I’ve made it perfectly clear how I feel about this! It’s dangerous, and irresponsible, and for you to sneak around and disobey me-”

“You don’t get to make these choices for me!” Ruby retorted. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”

“I am your older sister!” Dia insisted. “It’s my _job_ to tell you what to do!”

“It was your job when we were kids! It was your job when I was ten and mom and dad worked late!” Ruby shouted back. “I’m an _adult_ now! I can make these decisions for myself!”

“And this is the decision you want to make?” Dia spat. “After seeing what could happen? After seeing what _did_ happen? To Aqours? To Mari? This is what you’re choosing?”

“I am _sorry_ ,” Ruby said, each word dripping with an anger she was only just barely containing as she lowered her voice back down, “that all that happened to you. I really am. But you don’t get to crush my dream just because something crushed yours.”

“You think that’s what this is about?” Dia asked. “You think this is some sort of petty bitterness? This is for your own safety! I’m trying to _protect_ you!”

“The same way you’re trying to protect Three Mermaids?” Ruby asked, causing Dia to freeze on the spot. “You’ve never offered to practice with me,” Ruby continued. “You’ve never offered to hire me a trainer. You’ve never tried to help me at all. Why am I different?” A long silence followed the question, and while Ruby was still staring Dia down, Dia found herself breaking her eyes away, mind circling an answer she knew but didn’t want to say. When she spoke again her voice had lost its edge, lost its anger, and she could barely even hear herself over the blood rushing past her ears.

“Because you’re my sister,” she finally admitted.

“Then start acting like it,” Ruby muttered, before turning on her heels and making for the door. Dia didn’t know how to respond, half of her wanting to run after Ruby and grab onto her to stop her from leaving, half of her wanting to snap and scream again, yell at Ruby about how unreasonable she was being, about how _stupid_ she was being. In the end the indecision froze Dia in place, preventing her from doing either of those things, and it was only once Ruby had left the room and her office was empty again that Dia’s anger ended up bubbling back up. When it did come back, though, it came on strong, and fast. Dia’s body started to shake, and her hands balled into tight fists, nails digging at the insides of her palms, before she spun back towards her desk and let out an agonized, infuriated scream. She slammed her fist down against the surface of the desk so hard she thought she might have broken her knuckles, and then did it again, and again, and again, until her skin was red and pinpricks of blood were dripping from it. She beat the desk and screamed out until her arm ached and her lungs felt like they were going to burst, and only then, once she was too exhausted to continue, did she double forward, trembling arms barely managing to support her weight.

Dia’s whole body was shaking. Her stomach felt sick, and her chest was tight, making breathing difficult. Her vision was blurred by angry, rage-fueled tears. Her hand was still quivering as she reached out for her phone, fingers fumbling just to type out a two-digit extension she had typed hundreds of times before. Pressing the plastic of the phone against her face made Dia realize how badly she was sweating, and the two rings directly into her ear made her frustration flare back up, nearly causing her to smash the phone down until the recipient answered.

“Hello?”

“Mari,” Dia barely managed to say, words undercut by her heavy, labored breathing. “Let’s get those drinks.”


	7. Old Flames

**2:56 pm, April 29th, 2030  
** **909 Training Grounds, Minato, Tokyo**

Ruby barely had time to brace for impact before she hit the ground, grunting out in pain as she went tumbling across the concrete for what must have been the twentieth time that day. She was able to recover quickly, at least, skidding a few more feet before righting herself, stumbling backwards as she managed to get to her feet. Looking across the training arena she saw Nozomi, already pivoting from the throw that had sent Ruby flying to guard against an attack coming in from Hanamaru. She seemed to block it effortlessly, sweeping Hanamaru’s arm to the side and redirecting the girl’s weight to send her collapsing to the ground as well, in much the same way she had sent Ruby flying seconds earlier.

They had been training in this fashion since just after lunch had ended, focusing entirely on their hand-to-hand combat abilities, no magical powers to be found. Nozomi insisted it was just as important to work on fundamentals as it was to work on anything else, and the fact that she was able to so easily fight off three attackers at once was proof enough of how true that was. It had been one thing when she had wiped the floor with them using a powerful magical attack during their audition. But when she was able to do so using nothing but her own body, it truly highlighted just how far above her new recruits she really was.

Ruby was already tensing her legs and assuming an offensive posture, getting ready to rush at Nozomi with yet another attack, though before she was able to spring forward Nozomi raised her hands, putting them out in front of her. Ruby paused, and on her other side Hanamaru and Yoshiko did the same.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Nozomi said. “I can tell you’re all starting to get tired. I don’t think there’d be a point to pushing you any further now. Go get some rest,” she said, before flashing a wink and a playful smile. “We’ll start again bright and early tomorrow.” That thought sent a chill down Ruby’s spine, though at the moment she was so thankful just to have a moment to rest that she couldn’t even bring herself to dwell on it for too long.

Taking a moment to shake her injuries off and scrape the dirt from her arms, Ruby then walked over towards the edge of the arena, joining up with Hanamaru and Yoshiko as she went. Yoshiko was limping a bit, and Hanamaru was walking stiffly, both of them clearly just as worn out and sore from their long day as Ruby herself was.

“What do you think?” Hanamaru asked, directing her question towards neither of them in particular. “I feel like we’re getting at least a little bit better.”

“Better at getting our asses kicked,” Yoshiko groaned. “It’s been two weeks of this and we still haven’t managed to put a scratch on her.”

“She at least looked like she was having to try a little harder this time,” Ruby said, though even as the words left her mouth she wasn’t sure she believed them. She was beyond excited to finally be pursuing a career as a professional Magical Girl, of course, and to be pursuing that career at 909 of all places, while training with Nozomi Toujou of all people. Still… She had underestimated just how grueling their training was actually going to be. Ruby had spent hundreds of hours practicing on her own in pursuit of this goal, had been working for _years_ to hone her skills and get herself in shape, and had, if she was being honest with herself, thought she was doing quite a good job of it. Now, though? Now all the training she had done in the past felt like absolute child’s play compared to what she was enduring here.

“Can we go get some food?” Hanamaru asked as the trio made their way over towards the wall, where they had left their belongings coming in. “I’m hungry, zura.”

“You’re always hungry,” Yoshiko scolded.

“I’m extra hungry right now.” Ruby was only halfway paying attention to the conversation her friends were having, instead more focused on crouching down next to her own backpack and digging down into it. Reaching around for a few seconds she was able to find her phone, turning on the screen to check the time. In doing so she saw that she hadn’t missed any notifications while she had been training, though that didn’t stop her from unlocking the screen and opening her camera app. Turning on the front-facing camera Ruby could see just how disheveled she looked at the moment: cheeks flushed pink, forehead glistening with sweat, hair messy and sticking up in every direction. She took a brief moment to try to wipe some of the sweat away and straighten out her hair, though even then she realized she was fighting a losing battle. Putting a smile on her face and holding up a peace sign she snapped a picture, giving it a once over before tapping on the “Send to contact” option, followed by the name “Dia Kurosawa.”

“Just got finished with another day of training!” Ruby typed out, appending the caption to the image before sending it to her sister. As it sent, though, it popped up the full conversation with Dia- if it could even be called a conversation. Every day since she had started training with 909 Ruby had sent pictures and messages to check in and update Dia, and not once had Dia responded to any of them. Ruby hadn’t heard a single thing from her sister in weeks. Not since that day in her office.

“Ruby-chan!” Ruby was broken from her train of thought by the sound of Yoshiko’s voice calling to her, and she looked back over her shoulder to see that Yoshiko and Hanamaru had both already gathered up their own belongings, and were now standing by the gate out of the training ground. “We’re going up to the cafeteria. Are you coming?”

“R-Right!” Ruby replied, grabbing her own bag off the ground and slinging it over her shoulder as she ran over to them. “You’re paying, right Maru-chan?”

“I never agreed to that,” Hanamaru huffed, and Ruby merely laughed as she followed her friends out.

* * *

**2:59 pm, April 29th, 2030  
** **Ohara Incorporated Training Grounds, Nakano, Tokyo**

Dia couldn’t help but wince as she watched You Watanabe go crashing into the wall of their training ground. For the most part she had been taking a relatively hands-off approach to Three Mermaids’ regimen ever since Kanan had taken over- Dia had asked for Kanan’s assistance for a reason, after all, so she largely saw fit to not involve herself, and to let Kanan do as she would. Still, given that she _was_ Three Mermaids’ manager, and given that she _had_ been responsible for their training prior to this, she felt it proper to at least observe on occasion.

As Dia watched Kanan spar with her trainees (though “spar” was a particularly generous word, given how one-sided these fights were) she was distracted by the feeling of her phone buzzing inside her pocket. Slipping it out Dia glanced at the screen, eyebrows immediately creasing down when she saw her sister’s name there. She cleared the notification without opening it, then put her phone away again and returned her eyes to the training ground.

Dia looked back up just in time to see Chika lunging towards Kanan, attempting to throw a punch that Kanan easily sidestepped. Kanan then grabbed her arm and swung her around, slamming Chika onto her back on the concrete like she were little more than a ragdoll. Chika groaned as she hit the ground, face scrunching up in pain for a moment, before her eyes opened again and blinked up at Kanan.

“Do we really have to keep doing this?” she whined out. “You’ve been beating us up all day!” Looking around the area, Dia could see that Chika’s complaint was true. You was still picking herself back up after being thrown into the wall, clearly struggling a bit to get herself upright, and Riko was at the other end of the arena, doubled over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath after her own latest bout. Despite Dia’s sympathy, though, Kanan didn’t seem to feel the same. She didn’t respond at first, simply walking closer to where Chika was laying and coming to stand over her. And then, rather abruptly, Kanan’s signature spear materialized in her grip, and she thrust it downward, bringing the point to stop a fraction of an inch from Chika’s throat.

“If I were a real enemy you would be dead right now.” At that point, Dia finally felt compelled to intervene.

“That’s enough,” she called out, walking forward from the edge of the training ground and in towards the center of the arena. “You three are dismissed. Go get some rest. Be sure to ice any bruises you might have.” Kanan glanced back over her shoulder to give Dia a glare, clearly not pleased about having her lesson interrupted, though Dia did her best not to let it phase her. “Matsuura-san. Can I speak to you in private for a moment?”

“Fine,” Kanan replied, spear dissipating as she stepped away from Chika. Wordlessly, Dia turned and walked back towards the other edge of the arena, away from the exit, so she could put distance between herself and the members of Three Mermaids as they left, and the footsteps behind her told that Kanan was following. As she reached the wall Dia finally turned back, to find Kanan already glaring at her.

“What’s this about?” Kanan demanded. “Gonna scold me?”

“Ah, excellent,” Dia replied. “You’re already a step ahead of me. Just what the hell do you think you’re doing out there?”

“Toughening them up,” Kanan said. “Like you hired me to.”

“You’re not toughening them up, you’re _killing_ them,” Dia retorted.

“Saint Snow can handle my lessons just fine.”

“Saint Snow has more experience. Sarah-san does, at least. You can’t expect Three Mermaids to be at the same level.”

“I can, and I will,” Kanan replied. “You didn’t bring me in here to give you one good team and one shitty team. I’m gonna train them all the same, and if some of them can’t keep up that’s not my problem.”

“For goodness’ sake,” Dia groaned out, “ _look_ at them. They’re exhausted. They’re battered and bruised. They can barely even _stand_ after your lessons.”

“Then that means they’re getting stronger,” Kanan insisted. “Nobody ever got tough by taking it easy. You wanna build something up better, you have to break it down first.”

“They aren’t _things_ ,” Dia chided. “They’re _people_.”

“Now that it’s convenient for you, sure,” Kanan replied, causing Dia’s eyes to narrow.”

“Are we really doing this now?”

“I'll spare you the trouble,” Kanan answered, “I don't have time to go around in circles with you again, so lemme make this simple. You brought me in here because you knew _you_ didn’t have what it takes to train those girls up to a point where they won’t get themselves killed when _you_ send them out on missions. If you want me to stop what I’m doing then by all means, just say the word. I have plenty of other ways I could be spending my time. But if you want my help, which I _know_ you do, then back the fuck off and let me train them the way _I’m_ going to train them. Stop trying to get in my way.” Dia bit at the inside of her cheek as Kanan stared her down, though loathe as she was to admit it, she knew she didn’t have much leverage in this conversation. She had shown her entire hand just by asking Kanan to come here in the first place. She needed Kanan. Kanan didn’t need her in the slightest.

“All I’m asking is for you to be a bit more sympathetic towards them,” Dia eventually said. “They don’t have the same experience we do.”

“Yeah,” Kanan replied. “That’s exactly the problem.” And without another word, or a chance for Dia to respond, Kanan was turning around and marching her way back out of the training grounds, leaving Dia to watch helplessly as she walked away.

* * *

**3:08 pm, April 29th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

The offices seemed to be largely empty as Kanan made her way inside. Not surprising, given that Three Mermaids had already left for the day, and Dia was presumably still by the training grounds. For the most part Kanan didn’t bother to come up to the offices in the first place. Usually, she just met Three Mermaids down at the training ground, went through their routine for the day, and then left. Today, however, with Dia interrupting their session partway through, she’d been left with more free time than she was expecting. She intended to make good use of it.

Ohara Incorporated’s Offices weren’t exactly large to begin with. A wide-open central area that seemed more like a lounge than anything else, a single conference room, and two offices: one for Dia, which Kanan was walking past without a second thought, and one for Mari Ohara, which Kanan was headed directly towards.

The door to Mari’s office was shut, and the blinds were pulled down on the other side of the glass walls, but Kanan didn’t let that deter her. She knew Mari must have been in there- she always left her door open when her office was empty. If it was shut, that meant the room was occupied. Reaching down to grab the handle Kanan twisted it, finding that it wasn’t locked, and she pushed the door open to step inside. The moment she did so, she froze.

Mari was indeed inside the room, standing against a line of floor-to-ceiling windows that were blocked by blinds the same way the interior windows were, and she was shirtless. Her shirt was laid across the desk a few feet away, and her fingers were currently in the process of undoing a heat pack that was strapped around her abdomen. Kanan immediately winced at the sight, and tried to avert her gaze, though Mari didn’t seem similarly perturbed.

“I’m sorry-” Kanan blurted out. “I didn’t-”

“It’s alright,” Mari replied, not even bothering to look towards Kanan as she spoke. “Not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before. If you’re coming in just shut the door, would you?” Mari’s tone didn’t seem annoyed or upset at the sudden intrusion, certainly, but at the same time it was decidedly _flat_. Lethargic, emotionless, so unlike the energetic, charismatic Mari Ohara that anyone who knew her was so used to. Half of Kanan was compelled to leave, but at the tacit invitation she found herself stepping further into the room instead, closing the door behind her just as Mari had requested.

“I really didn’t mean to intrude,” she mumbled, sheepishly averting her gaze.

“You probably should have knocked, then,” Mari replied. Out of the edge of her vision Kanan could see Mari stepping closer to her desk, picking up her shirt and slipping it back on, and as she lifted her eyes again Kanan was just barely able to catch a glimpse of a scar running along Mari’s side before it disappeared underneath the fabric. “Did you need something?” In light of the sudden awkwardness that had ensued Kanan found herself taking a moment just to remember why she’d come in there in the first place, but after a second or two she nodded, meeting Mari’s gaze directly now.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Have I?” Mari scoffed, words punctuated with a bit of abrupt, bitter laughter. “That’s quite the accusation, coming from you.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Kanan replied. “And for the past two weeks you’ve been giving me the runaround. I was starting to think you didn’t even actually work here.”

“Well, you finally managed to find me. Congratulations,” Mari said, though her tone hardly sounded congratulatory. “Was there something in particular you wanted to say now that you’ve got me here? Or did you just miss my beautiful face?”

“Mostly the latter,” Kanan answered, though her bluff at confidence didn’t last for long. Her words quickly fell off, and then she found herself floundering for what to say next. “I missed… _You_.”

“Really?” Mari replied, sounding utterly unimpressed. “You could have fooled me.”

“Come on, don’t do this to me,” Kanan sighed. “You know it wasn’t you.” She paused, then, eyes moving towards the now-discarded heat pack sitting on the desk, before moving back up to meet Mari’s gaze, then down towards the side of her stomach. “How… How have you been?” she asked.

“Not any worse than I was, I suppose,” Mari answered, turning her own eyes away from Kanan now. “It still hurts every damn day of my life, but at least I can walk and lift my arms again. Silver linings, you know?”

“Yeah…” Kanan replied, though she didn’t sound convinced by that. Another beat passed, and then she spoke again. “Can I… Can I see it?” That time it was Mari who hesitated, before giving a slow nod.

“Yeah. I suppose.” Kanan nodded back before, wordlessly, walking across the office to where Mari was standing. Mari still avoided looking at her, keeping her head turned off to the side instead, not seeming to be focused on anything in particular. As Kanan reached Mari she stretched her hands out, delicately taking hold of the bottom of Mari’s shirt to push it up and expose her stomach- and to expose the horrible, grizzled scar that ran down so much of her body underneath it.

The scar was longer than Kanan could see, starting all the way up by Mari’s chest and continuing low enough that it dipped below the waist of her pants. It was jagged and crooked, starting closer to Mari’s side and bending in towards the center of her body the lower it got, and even now, two years later, it was clear just how poorly the tissue had twisted itself together in its attempts to heal.

Kanan could still remember, in gut-wrenching, vivid detail, the moment Mari had gotten that scar. It had been back during a much simpler, much happier time; after A-RISE had vanished and µ's had disbanded, Mari Ohara had come to her two best friends with wide-eyed ambition about how this was their opportunity to be the next big thing. Dia, with her lifelong admiration for Magical Girls, had been easy to persuade, and while Kanan cared less about the imagery and the politics of it all, the idea of a career fighting monsters was perfectly up the alley of a cocky young spitfire like herself. Thus, Aqours had been formed.

For two years Aqours had found more success than they had any right to, considering their humble, impromptu origins. They had never earned that coveted #1 spot with as much uncontested certainty as A-RISE had, but that was already a lofty ambition to begin with. They were quite popular regardless, and there were surely those who would make a case for Aqours being _the_ dominant Magical Girl group during that time period. Eventually, that success got the better of them.

It was easy to pretend that such a thing was inevitable, or that it was simply the result of bad luck, that it could have happened to anyone, but in the two years that had passed since then Kanan had never been able to shake the feeling that it was their own fault for growing cocky and arrogant after the success they had enjoyed. The image of that Silence’s claw tearing into Mari’s side like it was paper was forever etched into her mind, followed by the image of Mari collapsing to the ground, blood gushing out of her like a waterfall, face so blank with shock Kanan had thought she was dead. It was clear, after that injury, that Mari was never going to be able to fight again- even lifting her arm had proved to be a challenge for months afterward- and with her forced retirement Aqours had ultimately dissolved.

Looking at the scar now, it was at least better in the sense that it was no longer an open, gaping wound, though it didn’t feel right to call this _good_ by any stretch of the imagination. Kanan crouched down to bring herself to eye-level with the scar, properly taking it in for the first time since she had dropped to her knees beside Mari two years ago while ripping off strips of her own clothing and shoving them against Mari’s side in some desperate bid to stem the bleeding. Now Kanan’s fingers reached up to run along the scar, delicately, waiting for any indication of pain, though Mari didn’t give one, and so Kanan allowed herself to go further, tracing down along the wound’s curvature. Mari’s skin felt so familiar to her, and yet so alien all at the same time, a distant memory that was coming back to her all too vividly in this moment. How long had it been since she had last felt Mari underneath her fingertips? How long had it been since she had dragged herself across Mari’s body, not realizing, in that moment, that it would be the last time she ever did so?

As Kanan’s fingertips reached the end of their path, running against the area where the scar dipped below Mari’s waistband, she found her chest tightening, breath stopping for a moment. She stared at Mari’s skin, at that scar that was so ugly, so cruel, so audacious to think it had the _right_ to exist on Mari’s flawless body. And yet it was a part of her now, beautiful as any other, and as her eyes lingered Kanan found herself leaning forward until her lips were brushing against the gnarled, twisted tissue, kissing softly against it. She heard a sharp exhale escape Mari above her, but Kanan didn’t let that deter her, lips beginning to trace their way down the length of the scar until Kanan finally felt a hand against the top of her head, pushing her backwards.

“Kanan,” Mari said, and Kanan finally lifted her eyes to see Mari staring back down at her. “What do you think you’re doing?” She opened her mouth to give an answer, though in doing so she realized she didn’t have one, and another moment passed in silence between them before Mari spoke again, breaking her eyes away. “You can’t walk out of my life for two years and expect things to pick up where they left off the moment you return.”

“I’m sorry,” Kanan managed to reply. “I just-”

“We’ve both changed since then,” Mari said, stepping backwards to free herself from Kanan’s grip, letting her shirt fall back down to cover her stomach again. “I don’t really think I can say whether or not my change has been for the better. But it’s painful to realize yours hasn’t.” Kanan’s chest tightened once more when she heard that, though in a much different way than before. She stayed as she was for another few seconds before pushing herself upright, pointedly avoiding looking at Mari as she did so.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, voice quiet, words strained. Mari didn’t answer right away. Instead she turned back towards the windows, stepping forward and pulling at one of the cords to raise the blinds and let the afternoon sun come streaming back in.

“You should go home,” she eventually said, and Kanan couldn’t find it in herself to do anything but nod in agreement.

“Alright,” she said, turning back towards the door. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yes,” Mari replied. “I’m sure you will.”

* * *

**4:05 pm, April 29th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

Ruby would have thought that, by this point, she would have gotten used to being surrounded by celebrities every single day, but apparently she still hadn’t. It was already bizarre enough to have their daily training sessions with Nozomi Toujou, or to have Eli Ayase checking in with them to arrange their schedule. It only got even more unbelievable when Ruby could go upstairs after a long day of work and sit down in a lounge with even _more_ of µ's’ former members.

That was where Ruby found herself right now: sitting on a couch in between Yoshiko and Hanamaru, while Honoka Kousaka, Umi Sonoda, and Maki Nishikino were sitting around on the armchairs that were arranged around the low coffee table at the center of them. The first few times she had gotten the chance to interact with 909’s top talent Ruby had been utterly starstruck, and even now she was having a hard time keeping herself entirely under control. Despite that, though, everyone she had met so far had been remarkably welcoming, and this wasn’t proving to be any exception.

“How’s training been going with Nozomi-chan?” Honoka was asking. “She can be a real hardass, huh?”

“Don’t call her that,” Umi chided, and Ruby couldn’t help but giggle, though she was polite enough not to openly agree with a statement like that.

“It’s been demanding,” Ruby agreed. “But… It’s exciting to have an opportunity to train in a place like this. I can already tell we’re getting a lot stronger than we ever were on our own.”

“Very diplomatic answer,” Maki chimed in. “You’ll do just fine here.” Even if it was something of a tongue in cheek compliment, delivered with Maki’s signature dryness, Ruby still couldn’t stop herself from smiling a bit. She would gladly take any little sliver of praise she could get, when it was coming from her heroes.

“Being unassuming and staying out of trouble is my specialty,” Hanamaru said, though Ruby wasn’t sure if that was really something to brag about.

“Not too unassuming, I hope,” Maki replied. “Otherwise you’ll have a hard time making a good image for yourself.”

“Well then… Maybe you could offer me some pointers on that, zura.”

“I suppose I could,” Maki agreed. “Though I hardly think I’m the showiest member of our agency either.”

“Maybe not,” Hanamaru agreed. “But seeming like you’re not trying too hard is part of what makes you so cool.” Ruby had never known Hanamaru to have a particular interest in Maki over any of µ's’ other former members, and for a moment she found that curious, though just a second later Honoka was speaking up again.

“We can all offer you pointers if you need them!” she promised. “Just think of us as your senpais! If there’s ever anything we can help you out with, or if you have questions about anything, don’t be afraid to ask! That’s what we’re here for!”

“Thank you,” Ruby giggled back, genuinely quite appreciative to have someone as welcoming and enthusiastic as Honoka. “We’ll be sure to do that.”

“And if you want actual _good_ advice,” Umi added on, gesturing between herself and Maki, “be sure to come to one of us.” While Umi spoke Honoka’s phone started vibrating against the edge of the couch, and while everyone heard it, nobody thought much of it until Honoka loudly interrupted whoever was going to speak next.

“EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP KOTORI-CHAN IS CALLING!” Umi and Maki immediately looked at Honoka with an expression of surprise as Honoka announced that, and even if Ruby didn’t know her personally, she recognized the name Kotori as well. Kotori Minami was another former member of µ's, and the only one who was no longer affiliated with 909, or with the Magical Girl industry at all. Following µ's’ breakup she had retired, and had since pursued a very successful career in the fashion industry, eventually leaving Japan entirely and moving to Paris. Ruby hadn’t followed Kotori’s career quite as closely as she had followed the careers of those µ's members who were still actively working as Magical Girls, but she knew the general details of the story regardless.

Following Honoka’s rather blunt demand the rest of the room went silent as she answered the call, immediately putting the phone on speaker so everyone else could hear as well. “Kotori-chan!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you to call! What’s up?”

“Hi, Honoka-chan!” Kotori replied from the other end, and though the connection was a bit poor and staticky her voice still carried a definite brightness and bubbliness with it. “Are you at the office right now?”

“Yeah!” Honoka replied. “Maki-chan and Umi-chan are here too! And some of the newbies!”

“Hello,” Umi said, leaning in a bit closer towards the phone.

“Hey,” Maki called out.

“Hi everyone!” Kotori called back, “I’m glad so many of you are here, that makes this easier. I’ve got some exciting news: I’m gonna be back in Tokyo next week!’

“You are??” Honoka blurted out, and though she was the one to vocalize it most loudly, it was clear from the look on Umi and Maki’s faces that they were similarly excited to hear that news, if not a bit surprised by it as well.

“Mhm!” Kotori said. “There’s a fashion show going on in Harajuku, another designer dropped out so I got invited kind of last minute. But as long as I’m back in the area… We should try to make time to see each other.”

“Yes! Absolutely! We’d love that!” Honoka readily agreed, nodding along vigorously, as if Kotori could see that. “Should I tell the others about this too? Should I invite all of them?”

“Yeah, of course!” Kotori said.

“Great! I’ll let everyone know! We can all have a big dinner party or something like that! It’ll be just like old times!” A small pause followed that, and then Kotori could be heard laughing on the other end of the line. Ruby didn’t know Kotori or her mannerisms nearly well enough to say for certain. But she could swear something sounded just a little bit different about it.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Just like old times. I don’t know exactly what my schedule is gonna look like yet, but I’ll let you know soon, okay?”

“Alright, sounds good! If I tell Eli-chan she’ll definitely work our schedules around it!”

“That sounds good. I’ll talk to you soon, alright, Honoka-chan?”

“Yeah, talk to you soon!” With that the call came to an end, and Honoka set her phone down, still beaming for a few seconds, until her eyes finally landed on Ruby and Yoshiko and Hanamaru for the first time since the conversation had started. “Ah! I’m sorry!” she blurted out. “That was so rude of me! I should have introduced you guys!”

“It’s alright,” Ruby giggled back. Eager as she may have been to meet Kotori Minami, she felt that a phone call would be an awkward way to do it anyway.

* * *

**8:19 pm, April 29th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

Another late night; Dia had been having a lot of those lately. Some of it was self-inflected, honestly. She probably could’ve afforded to have gone home a while ago, left the paperwork she was sorting through until tomorrow, gotten a good night’s sleep. But that was just the thing: she knew she _wasn’t_ going to get a good night’s sleep. At least when she was here in the office she could feel like she was being productive, rather than wasting the evening pacing her apartment or tossing and turning restlessly in her bed.

“Knock knock,” Dia heard someone say, and she raised her eyes to see Sarah standing in her doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. Often Dia was irritated by the oh so frequent interruptions that came through her office when she was trying to work (though in fairness' sake, ninety percent of those interruptions could be attributed to be Mari). Right now, however, she welcomed the distraction, and she was all too happy to sit up straighter in her chair, setting her pen down for the moment.

“You’re here terribly late,” she commented.

“Looking awfully black there, pot,” Sarah replied, taking the tacit invitation to walk further into the room. “I’ve actually been out to dinner and come back. But I’ve got a feeling you’ve just been here this whole time.”

“Guilty as charged,” Dia confessed. “Did you need something?”

“Just to talk,” Sarah replied, walking closer to Dia’s desk. “I saw the big announcement today. You didn’t tell me your little sister had signed with 909.” Dia bristled the moment Ruby and 909 were mentioned, teeth clenching together for a split second before she spoke.

“It wasn’t my place to make an announcement like that,” she replied, though it would be easy enough for anyone to tell how insincere that reasoning was. While Sarah didn’t call Dia’s bluff, Dia suspected that was more because she was being generous than because she genuinely hadn’t pieced the truth together.

“I get that,” Sarah ended up saying, circling around Dia’s desk while she spoke. “Probably not a great look for Ohara Incorporated though, right? I can’t imagine it’s good for the company’s image when your own little sister ends up signing somewhere else.”

“Sarah,” Dia replied, hands clenching together into tight fists. “I very sincerely do not want to talk about this.”

“That’s fine with me,” Sarah said, before abruptly dropping down into Dia’s lap, causing Dia to jolt up as a sudden burst of adrenaline surged through her. “I was lying anyway. I didn’t actually come here to talk.”

“What are you-” Dia managed to stammer out, though even then she couldn’t finish the sentence before Sarah was reaching up, lips stretching into a playful smile as she brushed her cold fingers across Dia’s cheek.

“You still blush just like you used to,” she cooed, making Dia realize just how hot her face had gotten. “It’s adorable how little you’ve changed.”

“I’ve changed plenty,” Dia bit back, turning her head off to the side to avoid looking at Sarah. That didn’t deter Sarah, whose fingers were tracing down Dia’s neck now, running along her skin until they reached the top button of her shirt.

“You’re right,” she agreed. “You used to be a lot happier.”

“If this is your attempt at seduction-” Dia said, though she was interrupted by Sarah’s hand returning to her cheek, turning her head back to face her, and then by Sarah leaning in to press their lips together.

Sarah’s lips were cold, just like her fingers were, just like every inch of her skin was. For a few seconds Dia found herself rooted in place, mind telling her to pull back while her body and her heart yearned for her to lean into it. In the end her mind won out, causing her to break away from the kiss, shaking her head.

“We can’t,” she said, causing Sarah to tilt her head to the side.

“Why not?” she asked. “You never seemed to mind before.”

“It was different back then. You weren’t my employee.”

“That’s what this is about?” Sarah laughed. “It’s not like you’re pushing me into this, Dia. I came into your office on my own.”

“It’s not just that,” Dia insisted. “It’s unprofessional.”

“Dia, Dia, Dia,” Sarah sighed, and each time Dia heard her name said like that it made her stomach flip. “There was never anything _professional_ about us. But we had such a good timeback then. What happened to you?”

“I matured.”

“You got uptight,” Sarah retorted. “Now let yourself relax. Be the old you. Have a little _fun_ again,” she said, leaning in closer to whisper those last words directly into Dia’s ear.

“I’m not-”

“Or,” Sarah continued, fingers already starting to tease apart the top button of Dia’s shirt. “If you’d rather, I could get out of your lap and take a seat in that chair over there, and we could have a nice long talk about all the things that are _really_ on your mind.” A shudder ran down Dia’s spine at the mere mention of that, at the thought of Kanan and Mari and Ruby and every other complicated thing that had happened in her life during the past two weeks. And that reminder was all it took for her to cave, and to press her lips back against Sarah’s, far too eager to lose herself in this distraction, and far too weak to deny herself of it any longer.

* * *

**乇:?Ҝ, ᗪ????ㄒ, ㄖ40?  
** **卩 \ㄥ??'1 丨ㄖ? &4???ㄖ**

…

_…_

…

_Hello?_

…

_Yes. I… I can hear you._

…

_Can you hear me?_

…

_Who are you? Where are we?_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_No._

…

_I don’t… I don’t remember._

…

_I don’t know._

…

_I don’t know._

…

_I don’t know!_

…

_I said I don’t know!_

…

_…_

…

_…_

…

_…_

...

_I think…_

…

_I think I’d like to go back to sleep now._

…

_Goodnight._


	8. First Day

**10:14 am, May 7th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

The staging area on the second floor of 909’s offices was hectic at this time of morning. There must have been upwards of twenty-five people crammed into that room, going over their assignments for the day, breaking into their teams, readying their costumes and double-checking their hair and their makeup. Some of them were the big names- Umi Sonoda was stashing her belongings in a locker while Honoka Kousaka was informing her that “ _Kotori-chan should have landed in Tokyo by now, you know!_ ”- while others were some of 909’s less headlining talent, Himeno Ayanokoji doing some stretches in the corner while Sakuya Kurobane made some last-minute adjustments to her outfit and Coco Miyashita psyched herself up in front of a mirror. For Ruby Kurosawa, who had never been a part of this particular ritual before, the chaos managed to border on overwhelming.

Today was the day: after three weeks of rigorous, grueling training, 909’s newest group were about to make their debut. The name “Yohane’s Little Demons” had been pared down to just “Little Demons,” and even that much had required a tooth and nail fight with Eli and Nozomi before they finally agreed to it. This was, of course, a fight Yoshiko had fought entirely solo, since Ruby and Hanamaru very sincerely did not care. Their group had gone through some image adjustments to bring them more onto the same page as well, and all three of them now had different costumes than they had first shown off to Nozomi during their audition. The bows and ribbons and ruffles had a bit of a gothic flare, though it was more subtle than anything Yoshiko would have suggested had she been in charge, and Ruby and Hanamaru’s outfits were white with black accents, while Yoshiko’s was black with white accents, to contrast them and stand out as the leader.

“Excited for your big day, huh?” Ruby heard a voice say, abruptly pulling her from her thoughts. She turned to see Nico Yazawa standing there, already in-costume as well, and she hastily nodded in response.

“Very excited!” she said, before pausing briefly. “But… Sort of nervous, too, if I’m being honest.”

“Well that’s not surprising,” Nico replied. “Stagefright is pretty common, especially in newbies. Of course, _I_ never get it anymore,” she boasted. “But there’s no shame in-”

“Are you trying to flex in front of my trainees again?” another voice cut in, and Ruby glanced over to see Maki Nishikino approaching her and Nico. Nico, looking quite irritated over having been interrupted, quickly shot a glare back in Maki’s direction.

“I wasn’t _flexing_ ,” she scoffed. “I was just trying to offer some sagely advice!”

“Be honest with me, Ruby-san,” Maki said, turning her attention to Ruby. “Was she flexing?”

“She was a little bit flexing.”

“Unbelievable,” Nico huffed. “This is what I get for trying to help! It’s not like I’d have any need to flex in the first place,” she insisted. “Trying too hard to show off is for people who _aren’t_ already famous, and After School Navigators is one of the most popular groups in all of Tokyo right now!”

“You know, I’ve actually been thinking about that name recently,” Maki commented. “It's occurred to me... Isn’t it sort of weird for a woman in her thirties to be part of a group called After School Navigators? You haven’t been to school in over a decade.”

“It’s not supposed to be taken literally!” Nico huffed back. “It’s about the aesthetic! It highlights my youthful, girlish charm!”

“You’re in the middle of a tax audit. You don’t have girlish charm.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Nico muttered, shooting Maki one more glare before turning on her heels and storming away. Maki watched her go for a few more seconds, before looking over towards Ruby again.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “She just makes it so easy.”

“It’s alright,” Ruby chuckled back, pausing for a moment before deciding to bite the bullet and ask what was on her mind. “Hey, um… I’m sorry if this is intrusive,” she started. “But… You know there are a lot of rumors about you two, and I was wond-”

“Good god, no,” Maki cut her off. “I’d rather eat nails.”

“Good to know,” Ruby laughed, and Maki at least looked amused for a moment as well, before her expression turned more serious again.

“Are you about ready to get going?” she asked. “We’re gonna be heading out in just a few minutes.”

“I think I’m ready, yeah!” Ruby answered. For Little Demons’ official debut as one of 909’s units they were going on a simple patrol around Shinjuku. Patrols were one of the most basic responsibilities of any professional Magical Girl group, and the _theoretical_ rationale behind them was so that, if a Silence were to attack, there would already be groups spread throughout the city ready to respond to the incident at a moment’s notice. With how infrequent Silence attacks actually were, however, most patrols passed uneventfully, and ultimately served the more practical purpose of letting Magical Girl groups get out in public, encounter fans, take photographs, and generally bolster their own image. It was a good two birds, one stone situation. Of course, with Little Demons being relatively inexperienced and entirely untested, Eli had also seen fit to send them out with a more senior escort. Hence, Maki.

“Good to hear,” Maki said. “I’m gonna go check in with the others. Meet me over by the doors when you’re ready, alright?”

“Alright!” Ruby agreed. With that Maki took her leave, and Ruby turned back to the lockers in front of her, where she was stashing her belongings while she was out. She was just about to shut the locker when she hesitated for a moment, and then ended up reaching inside, digging through her sweatshirt and her bag for a few seconds before she managed to find her phone. Pulling it out she unlocked her screen to take one last look, only to find that nothing had changed: when she’d woken up just a bit past six am she’d sent a text to Dia, reading “My big debut is today! Wish me luck! Ganbaruby!” And in the past four hours, just as always, she hadn’t received an answer. Ruby gave a small sigh, staring at the one-sided string of texts and images for a few more seconds before she shoved her phone back into her locker, slammed the door shut just a bit more aggressively than she’d meant to, and then turned to go off and join Maki.

* * *

**10:50 am, May 7th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

The small lounge area at the center of Ohara Incorporated’s offices was feeling especially crowded at the moment. Dia was there, as were Kanan and Mari, notably standing on opposite sides of her. Lined up in front of them were the members of Three Mermaids, as well as Saint Snow, for a grand total of eight people gathered together in a space that could comfortably fit maybe four.

“Now remember,” Dia was in the middle of saying, while her five employees stared dutifully back at her. “This is your first time patrolling together. You’re all part of the same team here, so put forward a good image, and be prepared to support each other if the need arises. And don’t take any unnecessary risks either,” she added on. “If you feel that you’re in danger, fall back and wait for additional assistance to arrive.”

“That’s right!” Mari agreed. “Just ask yourself: Would Dia pick this fight? And if the answer is ‘no,’ maybe don’t let that sway you one way or the other! Dia’s a pussy!”

“ _Mari_ ,” Dia hissed back, though she could already feel the others snickering at her- Chika and Sarah in particular. “I’m being serious, though. Be careful out there. Don’t put yourself in unnecessary danger.”

“Don’t you worry!” Chika promised her. “We’ll be fine! We’ve been training hard for this, after all!”

“And I’ll make sure to keep a tight collar around Chika-chan’s neck to keep her out of trouble,” You said- a word choice that Dia found absolutely baffling. “Nobody’s gonna eat shit on my watch.”

“That hardly reassures me,” Dia replied, though You ignored her.

“C’mon, ladies!” she said, tossing her arms around Chika and Riko's shoulders before she started headlock-dragging them towards the door. “This city’s not gonna patrol itself!”

“You’re choking me,” Riko whined out.

“Weird. That’s not something you usually have a problem with.” Dia watched Three Mermaids head out the door- as did Sarah- and the moment they were gone, Sarah turned her attention back towards Dia.

“Are they-”

“I haven’t the faintest fucking clue,” Dia replied.

“Weird.”

“Let’s get going too,” Leah cut in, tugging on her sister’s arm. “I don’t want them getting a head start on us.”

“Yeah, yeah, in a second,” Sarah replied. “Wish us luck out there, alright Dia?”

“You’re one of my employees,” Dia replied. “Of course I’m wishing you luck. I assumed that went without saying.”

“Well I wanna hear you say it.” Dia stared back at Sarah when she said that, and she did her best to keep her professional, steely demeanor up, not wanting to engage with whatever nonsense Sarah was up to this time. Sarah wasn’t wavering either, though, just smirking back at Dia, and after a few more seconds Dia ended up breaking her eyes away.

“Good luck,” she muttered.

“See?” Sarah snickered back. “That wasn’t so hard. C’mon, Leah. Let’s head out.”

“Finally,” Leah muttered, following her sister out of the room. There was another brief pause as they left, though the moment they were out of sight Dia suddenly felt hands clapping down on her shoulders, and Mari leaning in far too close to her.

“Dia,” Mari said. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”

“Must you use such vulgar language?” Dia huffed back.

“You’re not denying it, though.”

“I didn’t think I had to.”

“Dia Kurosawa,” Mari said. “Did you, or did you not, have sexual intercourse with her?”

“You already know I did, back when we-”

“Within the past two weeks.” Dia fell silent at that, and that was enough of an answer for Mari. “Ooooh, how delicious,” she giggled, content with the answer. “You know, when I warned you about bringing exes into the workplace I didn’t think it would blow up in your face _this_ spectacularly. Just couldn’t stay away though, hmm? I’m honestly sort of-”

“If you don’t need anything else from me,” Kanan interrupted, cutting Mari off mid-sentence. “I’ll be leaving now.” Dia felt Mari’s hands tighten against her shoulders as soon as Kanan spoke, though Mari said nothing, and with a sideways glance Dia met Kanan’s stern gaze.

“Yes, that’s fine,” she replied. “We’ll see you back for their regular training tomorrow?”

“Yeah. See you then,” Kanan said, before following the others out the door as well. A few seconds later she was gone, and now the formerly-cramped space was feeling quite empty again, Dia and Mari being the only ones left behind.

“You know, Dia,” Mari eventually said. “You’re awfully good at complicating things.”

“Believe me,” Dia replied. “I’m painfully aware.”

* * *

**11:55 am, May 7th, 2030  
** **Near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

Being out in public in her Magical Girl costume felt bizarre. Ruby had spent countless hours fiddling with it on her own, and by now she had even gotten mostly used to wearing the costume around the 909 offices when they were training or workshopping it. Both of those things were a far cry from walking down the middle of a crowded Tokyo street while dressed that way, though.

They had been getting some looks while they made their way through the streets, though Ruby wasn’t surprised by the fact that nobody actually seemed to know who she was or recognize her- it wasn’t like she had much to speak of in the way of a public image, after all. 909 had put out a press release and a few promotional photos after Little Demons had first been signed, but that was about it. Unsurprisingly, most of the attention seemed to be directed towards Maki instead. She was the _true_ celebrity of their group, after all.

“Don’t let it get you down too much,” Maki was saying. “The more you get out and the more people see you around, the more they’ll start to recognize you. It was even like this back when we first started µ's.”

“That’s kind of hard to imagine…” Hanamaru said. “It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when you _weren’t_ famous.”

“Well believe it,” Maki replied. “It took a lot of work to get to the top.”

“Even then… I would think someone like you would get famous as soon as people started seeing you.” Maki glanced back over her shoulder towards Hanamaru as Hanamaru said that, and the comment earned a raised eyebrow from Ruby as well, though before either of them could follow up on it Yoshiko was butting in as well.

“It would be easier to get some fame if there was actually anything interesting to do,” she groaned. “Are patrols always this boring?”

“I’m sorry,” Maki replied. “Are you actually complaining about the fact that we _haven’t_ been attacked by monsters yet?”

“I’m just saying it would give us a chance to show off, that’s all!”

“You should be counting your blessings,” Maki insisted. “It’s a _good_ thing the city’s not being-” And then, with some of the most impeccable timing Ruby had ever seen, Maki was interrupted mid-sentence by shouting coming from further down the street, and by a rift opening up in the sky.

The rift had formed over a wide intersection, about forty feet up in the air, stretching out vertically before it started to expand horizontally as well. When the rift was wide enough two long, insect-like legs jabbed out from inside, each one looking like it must have been fifteen feet long, though it was hard to tell precisely from such a distance. As the legs stuck out they pushed against the edge of the rift and stretched it wider still, until the entirety of a massive, spider-like monster could be seen on the other end.

“Looks like you’ll be getting your wish after all,” Maki said, pulling her eyes away from the monster to look back towards her trainees. “Think you can handle it on your own?” Ruby didn’t respond to that question immediately. For a few seconds she was still rooted in place, staring up at the hideous monster as it emerged into Tokyo, as it finally started to dawn on her that _this_ was the reality of being a Magical Girl. She’d seen Silence countless times on television. She’d even been at the site of an attack in person a handful of times. But now, she wasn’t just a passive observer, or a civilian in need of saving. Now, she was the one expected to fight.

But it was too late to back down now.

“We can do this,” Ruby said, steeling her resolve as she looked towards her comrades. “Right, everyone?”

“R-Right!” Hanamaru agreed.

“O’ vile Jorougumo, prepare to face your reckoning,” Yoshiko added.

“I’ll hang back and let you show what you’ve learned, then,” Maki said. “But I’ll step in if things look like they’re getting messy. Now get up there and make 909 proud.”

“We will,” Ruby promised. And then she was vaulting into the air, ready to face her first true opponent.

* * *

**11:55 am, May 7th, 2030  
** **Shinjuku Central Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

Three Mermaids couldn’t help but feel slightly overshadowed by Sarah. They had been an active group for a while now, around a year, and during that time they had managed to make something of a name for themselves, but that still wasn’t enough to overtake the three-year headstart Sarah had on them. Even if she had done most of her work in Hakodate up until this point, she was still the one standing out the most out of any of them, attracting attention from the crowds they passed, receiving requests for photos and autographs more than any of the rest of them. Even Leah was getting sidelined a bit, in favor of her far more recognizable sister.

Three Mermaids didn’t resent this, necessarily, and to a degree it was even exciting to have the chance to work alongside a seasoned veteran like Sarah Kazuno, especially when they all still felt like they were relatively new to the professional Magical Girl scene themselves. Much of their patrol had been spent with Chika launching a seemingly endless barrage of questions in Sarah’s direction, much to Sarah’s bemusement and Leah’s apparent annoyance. And Sarah was taking her fame graciously enough, often inviting her cohort to join her in pictures even when she was the only one who had _actually_ gotten a request for a photograph.

“Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever gotten the chance to meet?” Chika asked as they made their way across the park paths, finding a momentary reprieve from the crowds.

“Do you ever shut up?” Leah finally cut in, though Sarah was just laughing- whether at the question or at her sister’s response, it wasn’t totally clear.

“If you can’t handle over-eager fans you’re not gonna last very long in this business,” she warned Leah, patting her sister on the back before thinking Chika’s question over. “But if I have to pick just one person… I got to end up on the set of the same photoshoot as Umi Sonoda once. I don’t think she knew who I was, but it was still pretty cool.”

“Woah!” Chika gasped. “You actually got to meet a member of µ's? Like, in the flesh?”

“So have you,” You reminded her. “You waited in line for like three hours to get Honoka’s autograph once, remember?”

“I remember it vividly,” Riko groaned. “You made me wait with you.”

“That was different!” Chika insisted. “Fan events aren’t the same as actually getting to work _with_ someone, you know? Getting to work alongside them is so cool!”

“I think you’re dramatically overestimating what it was actually like,” Sarah insisted. “We mostly just stood on opposite sides of a stage and-”

“Onee-san.” Sarah was cut off mid-anecdote by Leah, who had stopped in her tracks now, looking up towards the sky overhead. Following Leah’s gaze it was easy enough to tell what she was staring at: a rift that had just opened several blocks away, tearing its way through the sky as several long, dark, spindly legs stretched out from the nothingness and emerged into Tokyo.

“Look at that,” Sarah said, grinning from ear to ear as she cracked her knuckles in front of herself. “Looks like this day just got a lot more fun. You girls ready?”

“Hell yeah!” Chika replied, pumping her fists through the air in front of her, seeming far more excited about a dangerous monster attack than she should have been. “Let’s kick some ass!”

“Easy, Chika-chan,” Riko warned. “This isn’t a game, you know.”

“Maybe not,” Sarah agreed. “But there’s five of us and only one of it. How hard can this- Hang on,” she then said, eyes narrowing as they focused onto another detail of the scene in front of her: three smaller figures, already flying their way up towards the rift. And she wasn’t the only who had spotted them.

“Is that…” You said, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she tried to make out the details. “Is that Ruby-chan?”

“I’m pretty sure it is…” Riko agreed.

“Well, well, well,” Sarah chuckled. “This day just keeps on giving.”

* * *

**11:59 am, May 7th, 2030  
** **Near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

“Rose Thorn Entanglement!”

“Stygian Deliverance!” The spider Silence had nearly emerged from its rift fully now, teetering on the edge and threatening to drop down towards the city below, and Hanamaru and Yoshiko were already flying towards it on opposite sides. At Hamaru’s command a shimmering red rose appeared in the air above the monster, and then dozens of twisting, thorn-laden vines exploded outward and wrapped around the monster’s body, entangling its many legs and digging into its otherworldly flesh. Seconds later hundreds of dark hands were stretching out from inside the rift, grabbing onto the Silence in any spot they could find purchase, dragging it backwards towards the same void it had just emerged from. For a moment it actually looked like they were going to be successful. But only for a moment.

As the monster was dragged backwards it gnashed its fearsome mandibles together and let out an ear-splitting screech, and then it began to thrash its legs around, ripping through the tangle of vines and the army of hands alike as if they were both nothing. And then, free from its restraints, it launched itself forward with all eight of its legs and began falling down towards the ground- and towards the vulnerable crowd below.

“Ruby!” Yoshiko shouted. “Stop it!”

“Right!” Ruby shouted back, before dropping out of the sky and plunging towards the ground herself. Flying directly downward she managed to outrun the Silence, if only barely, and at the last second she swerved to fly directly underneath the monster, raising her hands skyward.

“Luminary Stasis!” As Ruby shouted the air above her shimmered and distorted, and a moment later an enormous, sparkling, ethereal crystal had appeared in the air, multiple facets surrounding the Silence and imprisoning it within. The monster impacted the prison with a loud crash that was already testing Ruby’s concentration, causing her to grit her teeth together as she tried to keep the spell from breaking, though even then she was already turning her attention elsewhere.

Down on the street the crowds of bystanders were evacuating as quickly as they could, and Ruby was looking back down over her shoulder to watch them as they fled, trying to buy as much time as possible while the Silence thrashed around and slammed its legs against the inside of the prison she had created. Each passing second was valuable, and yet demanding of Ruby all the same, but she held out for as long as she could, watching as the last of the stragglers finally made their way to what felt like a safe distance. And not a moment too soon.

With the crowd dispersed Ruby turned her attention back to the monster in front of her, just in time to watch one of those long, jagged legs come smashing through her barrier. It caught her full-on, nearly knocking the wind out of her as it sent her flying backwards and down to the ground, and smashing against the pavement was hardly any more pleasant than the initial impact. Ruby scrambled to right herself and get back to her feet as quickly as she could, struggling with even that simple action, and as she looked back up she watched the creature dropping to the ground not more than a twenty feet away, already skittering towards her.

Ruby’s body was in pain. She thought she’d known what pain felt like after training with Nozomi for the past three weeks, but now, she realized, that didn’t even come close to comparing. Nozomi’s attacks had felt brutal and merciless in the moment, but in hindsight it was clear that she had always been pulling her punches. This monster wasn’t going to show Ruby the same mercy. Just _standing_ was painful now, and with the aching in her arms and legs and ribs Ruby wouldn’t be surprised if something had been broken during the impact. The thought that she could actually keep _fighting_ after this felt impossible. And yet she knew she had to.

The next few moments seemed to play out in slow motion. Ruby watched as the Silence reached her, as it raised a long, jagged leg into the air, as it thrust it down towards her. And then she heard a thought in her head, shockingly clear and calm for the situation: “ _I’m going to die. It’s going to kill me. If I don’t move, it’s going to kill me._ ” So Ruby moved.

She didn't know how she did it. A moment before the thought of moving, let alone moving so _nimbly_ felt impossible, but now the adrenaline of being faced with a true life or death scenario for the first time was kicking in, spurring her forward. Ruby lunged forward as the Silence’s leg came crashing down in the spot she had been standing fractions of a second before, piercing through the ground and shattering the concrete. She tumbled underneath the Silence’s body, brain forming a plan as quickly as she was acting on it, and she ran forward until she could grab onto another one of the creature’s legs, barely able to wrap her arms around the entirety of its width. The Silence immediately started to thrash and swing its leg wildly, but Ruby held on for dear life, refusing to let herself be knocked loose.

“Crystal Petrification!” she shouted. Instantly a small crystal ring formed around the Silence’s leg, underneath where Ruby’s arms were grabbing, and then it quickly began to spread outward. The crystal stretched down, towards the base of the monster’s leg, slowly encasing it, and it stretched upward as well, working towards the base of the monster’s body, and then spreading outward along its torso, towards its other legs as well. As its body was encased the monster began thrashing even more aggressively, slamming its legs against the ground and jerking them violently in every direction, gnashing its mandibles together and letting out another deafening screech, but Ruby refused to allow herself to be thrown loose. As more and more of the Silence’s body was overtaken by the crystal its movements became more jerky, more uncoordinated, legs being locked into place and immobilized one by one, and it was only once around half the monster’s body was covered that Ruby finally released her grip, throwing herself backwards and immediately flying as far as she could to put distance between herself and the creature.

“Yoshiko!” she shouted, and as she looked skyward she watched Yoshiko drop down from up above, landing on the ground a few feet from Ruby and immediately slamming her hands against the concrete.

“FINAL SUMMONING!” Yoshiko called out, and instantly the air around them began to crackle. The crystal Ruby had created was still spreading across the Silence’s body, covering more and more of its form and leaving the monster to skitter about in uncoordinated desperation, and now the ground underneath the Silence started to glow, illuminated by a shimmering blackish-purple sigil. The sigil lit up, and then a second later a hand erupted from the ground.

This hand was larger than the ones Yoshiko had attacked with previously, larger even than the one she had summoned during their audition with Nozomi, and by no small margin. It was enormous, large enough to easily fit the Silence’s entire form into its palm, making the monster that had towered over Ruby look like hardly anything more than a normal spider by comparison. The hand must have stretched a hundred feet into the air as it rose from the ground, capturing the attention of everyone in the area, earning awed stares from the evacuated onlookers. And then the hand curled its fingers inwards and clenched them into a tight fist, shattering the Silence’s crystal exoskeleton, and utterly obliterating anything that might have been left inside.

A bizarre stillness followed that. The hand Yoshiko had summoned persisted a moment longer, and then it dissipated, and in doing so it became clear that the monster crushed in its grip had dissipated as well. Ruby stared at the empty space, as if she still couldn’t quite believe that the Silence was actually gone, as if she was still waiting for it to jump out again at any moment. But it didn’t. It was defeated, and everything was still, and quiet. And then the crowd exploded into cheers.

Ruby looked down the street in either direction towards where the crowds had evacuated, and she could see them pumping their fists into the air and clapping and shouting, and even then it took her a moment to fully process: they were clapping for _her_. Not just for her, but for all of them. It still took Ruby a few more seconds for it to fully set in, but as it did a smile appeared on her face, stretching wider and wider, until she was beaming from ear to ear.

“We did it,” she said.

“Yeah,” Yoshiko replied, grinning back at her. “We did.”

* * *

**12:02 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Shinjuku Central Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

“Come on, just let me help!”

“Easy, they’ve got it under control.” Sarah and Leah Kazuno were floating above Shinjuku Central Park now, along with the members of Three Mermaids, observing the battle that was taking place several blocks away. Sarah had an arm extended, blocking her sister from moving forward, and that was something Leah seemed quite displeased about.

“They need our help.”

“They’re alright without us. If we went now we would only get in their way.” That was something Sarah had learned through her many years of being a professional Magical Girl: it wasn’t rare for multiple groups from multiple different agencies to be patrolling the same area when a Silence attacked. And, similarly, it wasn’t rare for several of them to try to respond to the same incident either. Throughout it all, however, there was something of an unspoken rule between the different Magical Girl groups across all agencies: first come, first served. Part of it was a matter of respect. Any time a Silence attacked it was inevitable that any group in the area would want to jump into action so they could strut their skills and earn the fame and recognition that came with defeating a Silence, and as such it was also general etiquette not to try to butt into a situation that another group already had control of. Beyond that, however, it was also a matter of practicality. The individual members of any given group generally knew how to work with their teammates far better than they knew how to work with strangers, and trying to assist a group that already had a situation under control could often just result in undue amounts of chaos. The phrase “strength in numbers” didn’t apply when the numbers started stepping on each other’s toes.

“So what?” Chika cut in. “We’re just gonna stay back here and let them get all the glory?”

“Yeah, we are,” Sarah replied. “Unless you want it to be your fault that they trip over their toes and get their asses kicked.” A moment later she watched as, several blocks away, a massive hand shot up from the ground, clutching the Silence in its grasp as it reached high into the air. It towered so high that she likely would have been able to see it even if she _hadn’t_ been floating in the sky, and a grin spread over Sarah’s face as she watched the hand close inwards and crush the Silence in its grip. “You see?” she said. “I told you they could handle it.”

“Yeah, but still,” Chika muttered out, starting to lower herself back to the ground now that the show was over, and Sarah followed after her. “Sucks that we couldn’t get in on that.”

“That’s just how these things go,” Sarah replied, feet eventually touching down on the park path once again. “Sometimes other groups beat you there. It’s part of what makes this job so exciting.”

“Don’t get too down in the dumps, Chika-chan!” You said, clapping a hand against Chika’s back. “I’m sure we’ll get there first next time.”

“And really,” Riko added on, “I don’t think we should be _complaining_ that we didn’t have to fight that thing ourselves.”

“Yeah, but I _wanted_ to,” Chika huffed, before Leah chimed in too.

“Well, you might get that chance.” For a moment Leah’s words seemed to prompt confusion in Chika, but as Leah pointed skyward and Chika followed her gaze, it was easy to see what she was talking about: another rift was already tearing itself open in the sky, in the opposite direction of the first one, roughly a block away.

“The hell?” Sarah muttered out, eyes narrowed as she took the sight in. “Two in a row? That never happens…”

“It’s… It’s not just two,” Riko said, pointing towards the sky as well, in a different direction from Leah.

“And… Over here too,” You added, pointing in the exact opposite direction of Riko. Sure enough, they were all correct: all at once, the sky looked like it was being ripped open from every possible direction. There must have been a dozen rifts tearing open in the sky, all at the same time, stretching out across every area of Tokyo. It was unlike anything any of them had ever seen before; in Sarahs’ four-year-long career as Magical Girl she had never seen consecutive Silence attacks before, let alone this many at once. And even for the others, for those who hadn’t been Magical Girls for nearly as long, they had still been living with Silence attacks for all their lives. Even they knew how bizarre, how _impossible_ this felt.

“What… What do we do?” Riko asked, and for a moment Sarah stared up in a similar state of shock and disbelief, before her expression hardened into a picture-perfect image of resolve.

“We fight,” she replied. “Leah and I will go north. You three go south. Focus on evacuating the people first. Property can be replaced. Lives can’t.”

“Eh??” Chika blurted out from behind her. “You think we can take on all of these at once?”

“Probably not,” Sarah replied. “But we can mitigate how much damage they can do until backup arrives.” She paused there, before looking back over her shoulder, locking eyes with Chika. “You can handle that, right?” That time Chika paused for a moment, before her own expression hardened, and she gave a stern nod.

“Yeah. We definitely can.”

“Good,” Sarah said. “Then let’s get moving.”

* * *

**12:04 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

“There’s… There’s so many of them.”

“How is this even possible?” Ruby, Yoshiko, and Hanamaru were all gathered together on the street, still standing just a few feet away from where the first Silence had been defeated, watching as a dozen more of all shapes and sizes started to worm their way out into Tokyo as well. It was a horrifying, incomprehensible sight, like nothing any of them had ever seen before, and it only became worse when they realized just how close one of the monsters was.

A quadrupedal Silence dropped to the ground a few dozen feet away, body shaped like a panther, with a wide jaw and jagged fangs gnashing together. It opened its mouth wide and let out a sharp roar before charging forward, and Ruby raised her arms to ready a desperate counterattack, though it proved to be unnecessary. Just as Ruby prepared to defend herself against the assault Maki appeared- or at least, something that looked like Maki.

A shimmering, reddish-pink image of Maki had materialized in front of Ruby, semi-translucent, standing with its back to Ruby and staring the Silence down as it charged. The image of Maki raised a hand in front of itself and, somehow, that was enough. The Silence slammed against Maki’s outstretched palm as it charged forward, and despite the difference in size between them the monster buckled, bending in on itself in an abrupt, chaotic stop. A fraction of a second later two more images of Maki appeared overhead, lunging down towards the Silence and cutting through its body in an X pattern. There was a vibrant flash of light before the Silence split into four and exploded, and with the threat subdued the images of Maki dissipated as well.

“Are you alright?” a voice called out, and Ruby looked over to see Maki- the _actual_ Maki, now- running towards her. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Ruby promised. She was still in pain from the hit she’d taken, but she could stand, and she could lift her arms, so it couldn’t have been that bad. That was what she told herself, at least.

“But… What about all this, zura?” Hanamaru asked, looking up towards the sky, and towards the dozen or more rifts that were still opening all across the Tokyo sky.

“ _You_ are going to go back to the agency where it’s safe,” Maki replied, immediately earning her shocked, displeased looks from all three members of Little Demons.

“Eh?” Yoshiko blurted out. “No way! The city needs us right now!”

“The city needs people who can protect it,” Maki replied. “And no offense, but right now, that’s not you. You’re injured,” she said, looking towards Ruby, seeing right through her attempts to try to pretend she was fine. “And I can’t imagine that last attack you used was easy on you,” she added, glancing towards Yoshiko now. “Go back to the offices where it’s safe, and get checked out to make sure you’re not badly hurt. Then you can go from there.”

“Really, I’m okay,” Ruby tried to insist. “I’m just a little bruised, but I-”

“Ruby-san,” Maki interrupted, speaking with a tone that was stern and soft all at the same time. “You already defeated one Silence on your very first day on patrol. That’s more than I can say for any other Magical Girl group I’ve ever seen. You’re not going to do anyone any good by trying to push yourself further now.” Ruby stared back at Maki as she said that, and for a moment her own expression stayed strong, but after a few seconds passed she ended up glancing away and nodding meekly.

“Alright,” she reluctantly agreed. “We’ll go back.” The look on Yoshiko’s face was enough to say she didn’t love the idea, but it was harder for her to argue with Ruby than it was with Maki.

“If they determine you’re not hurt too badly they might send you back out,” Maki added on. “Get there safe.”

“We will,” Ruby promised, and as the trio started to make their way down the street Maki looked skyward again, reaching up to press her fingers against the wireless earpiece fitted into her ear.

“Nozomi,” she said. “Are you there?”

“I’m already seeing this on the news,” Nozomi’s voice came back a moment later. “Are you still in Shinjuku?”

“Yeah. I just sent Little Demons back to the office. I think Ruby-san might have been injured.”

“Understood,” Nozomi replied. “We’re dispatching as much backup as we can your way. We’ve put out an emergency call to all of our off-duty units.”

“Good. I’ll try to keep things under control here until they arrive.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Nozomi warned. “And while you’re at it… It looks like Ohara Incorporated has their units in the area right now as well. See if you can get them to cooperate with us.”

“Will do,” Maki said. “I’ll keep you updated.” With that she pulled her fingers away from the earpiece, and then leapt up and flew into the air, surveying her surroundings for any signs of the groups Nozomi had mentioned.

* * *

**12:08 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Shinjuku I-Land Tower, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

“Polar Vortex!” Sarah Kazuno raised her arms upward, seeming unfazed by the frigid, ice-filled winds that were suddenly whipping past her face. In front of her the winds twisted together into a massive column, ice crystals swirling in on each other and towering up into the air. At the center of the vortex another Silence was trapped, this one wolf-like in form, thrashing its legs and jaw wildly as it was lifted into the air.

“Ice Maiden!” Coming in over her sister’s head Leah Kazuno brought her arms down violently, and in doing so a dozen jagged spikes of ice shot out from the walls of the vortex, stabbing towards the center and piercing through the monster’s body. The Silence let out a horrifying roar as it dissipated, and with the monster gone Sarah allowed the vortex to subside as well, while Leah landed on the ground next to her.

“That’s one down,” Sarah said, before turning her eyes back towards the sky, watching as yet another rift opened up a short distance away. “Not that it’s doing a whole lot of good…”

“What the hell is going on anyway?” Leah muttered under her breath, half rhetorically.

“Nothing good,” Sarah replied. “Let’s keep moving, we’ll-”

“Excuse me! You two!” Turning her eyes towards the voice Sarah saw another figure descending from the sky a short distance away, touching down on the ground and beginning to approach them. “My name is Maki Nishikino, I’m-”

“Yeah, I know who you are,” Sarah interrupted, unable to suppress a small grin, despite the situation, at knowing she’d caught the attention of one 909’s stars. “Can we do something for you?”

“I heard a report that there were other groups in the area,” Maki replied. “I was hoping we would be able to coordinate, to maximize our efficiency.”

“That’s how you roll over at 909, huh?” Sarah replied. “You get famous enough and suddenly you think you’re qualified to start dishing out orders to groups that aren’t even from the same agency as you?” Maki’s eyebrows furrowed down at Sarah’s words, and she opened her mouth to speak, before Sarah cut her off with a laugh. “I’m kidding,” she said. “What’s your plan?”

"I see," Maki said, not quite seeming to find the humor in Sarah's joke. “909 is sending reinforcements to this area as we speak. Right now it would be helpful to us if you could continue moving north towards Toshima. It seems as if these attacks have spread at least that far.”

“They’re that bad, huh? We’ll work our way up there, then.”

“Thank you,” Maki said. “I appreciate your cooperation.”

“Yeah,” Sarah replied. “Don’t mention it.”

* * *

**12:09 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Nishi-Shinjuku Junction, Shinjuku, Tokyo**

“Omni-thunder!” Stretching her arms above her head Chika Takami shot off a dozen bolts of electricity at once, forking lines splitting upward and outward in every direction and traveling directly into the dozen portals Riko had opened in the air around her. Twenty feet away a similar set of portals had opened in the space around a lumbering, spike-covered, vaguely humanoid Silence, and as Chika’s lightning entered one set of portals they emerged from the other, striking the monster from every direction at once. The monster went rigid as the lightning coursed through it, body jittering and trembling, before it finally exploded in a burst of dark smoke.

“Where to next?” You called out, already floating in the air above her teammates.

“We just keep moving south, right?” Riko called back. “That’s what Sarah-san said.”

“But there’s so many of these guys in every direction!” Chika whined out, looking north, then south, then east and west as well, taking in the rifts that were opening in every direction, looking like they were spreading all across Tokyo now. “How are we supposed to-” she started to say. And then she cut herself off mid-sentence as she looked north again, and froze in place as, a block away, the largest rift of all started to rip through the sky.

This rift looked different from the others, stretching out horizontally instead of vertically, extending across the sky over Tokyo like a massive dark cloud- an image that was strengthened by the crackles of dark energy that rippled across the surface of the rift like shadowy, sinister lightning. The wider the rift became the clearer the view through it grew, offering a prolonged glimpse into the bizarre, hellish realm the Silence emerged from. Chika braced herself for whatever horrible monstrosity was going to be coming through that rift, heart already beating twice as fast in anticipation of whatever unfathomable, titanic creature would be emerging from a rift of that size. And she was shocked, then, when she realized that the being emerging from the rift wasn’t enormous or monstrous at all; it was human. And it was a human that, even from this distance, she knew she recognized.

“Is that…?” she started to ask.

“No fucking way,” You said from beside her. Meanwhile, several blocks away, as she wandered the streets of Shinjuku on what was supposed to have been a pleasant day of visiting all of her old favorite shops and catching up with their owners, Kotori Minami looked up towards the sky alongside the hundreds of other civilians who were now captivated by the same sight. And then Kotori's blood ran cold inside her veins as, down from that enormous rift, she watched Tsubasa Kira descend into Tokyo.


	9. A-RISE

**12:11 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Shinjuku, Tokyo**

For a few seconds, as Kotori Minami stared up towards the sky, she was frozen in place. She simply stood there alongside the dozens of other pedestrians, watching in shock as Tsubasa Kira appeared in Tokyo for the first time in half a decade, stunned disbelief causing a silence to fall over the crowd. For a few seconds nobody spoke, nobody moved, and Kotori could hardly even register what she was seeing. And then the rage took over.

Kotori’s next actions happened on impulse. Wings erupted from her back, wide and angelic, stretching five feet out in either direction and shimmering in the midday sunlight. They kicked up a mighty gust of wind, prompting shouts from the people around her as they scrambled to get clear. And then Kotori’s wings whipped downward, hurling her up into the sky.

As Kotori flew through the air, getting closer to Tsubasa, she began to make the other woman out more clearly. Tsubasa’s clothing was dark, darker than anything she had ever worn during her time as a Magical Girl. Her eyes were still turned upward towards the rift she had descended from, but even then Kotori could see that there was something unnatural about them, that they were _glowing,_ with the same ethereal purple glow common of rifts and of Silence. Her arms were outstretched to either side, like a messiah, descending from a dark, chaotic heaven. And though she hadn’t seemed to notice Kotori yet, that quickly changed when Kotori shouted out to her.

“TSUBASA!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, wind whipping against her hair and her wings as she flew. That finally got the other woman’s attention, causing Tsubasa to look towards her, and as Kotori got closer she pivoted abruptly, swinging one of her wings out in front of her. Several feathers shot loose from her wing and tore through the air, razor sharp, cutting directly towards Tsubasa. Despite this Tsubasa remained unflinching, and her confidence was warranted.

Just before the feathers would have struck Tsubasa and cut into her, a barrier appeared in front of her, translucent purple and shimmering just like Kotori’s wings, and as the feathers struck against it they bounced off harmlessly and disappeared, leaving Tsubasa herself unscathed. Kotori glanced sideways to see none other than Anju Yuki dropping down beside Tsubasa, outfit similarly dark, eyes similarly illuminated. And with Anju now present, Kotori realized just a moment too late what else that must have meant.

She didn’t have time to avoid the chains that came erupting out from behind her, coiling around her torso and her arms and her legs, locking her in place before violently pulling her backwards. For a moment Kotori flew through the air against her own will, and then she cried out in pain as she was slammed at full speed into another barrier that had been summoned behind her. The chains held fast, shackling Kotori against the wall, and as Kotori looked backwards she could make out, through blurred vision, Erena Toudou holding onto the other end.

“I have to say, this is quite the surprise welcome,” Kotori heard a voice say, and she looked forward again to see Tsubasa floating towards her, coming closer now, no longer hiding behind the barrier Anju had created. “I’ve barely been back thirty seconds and you’re already coming to say hello.”

“What are you doing here?” Kotori demanded, immediately thrashing against the chains that still held her tight, though it did little good. “Where have you been? What happened to you?”

“That’s an awful lot of questions all at once,” Tsubasa replied, maintaining a playful irreverence that was hauntingly familiar to Kotori, despite the chaos around them. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to answer them.”

“All of this,” Kotori said, looking higher up towards the sky again, towards the rifts that were still opening, one by one, all over Tokyo. “Did you do this?” It was an easy assumption to make, an obvious one, and yet it was one Kotori didn’t _want_ to have to make. She wanted to believe there was some other explanation. Tsubasa wouldn’t give her that luxury.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Tsubasa giggled, raising her arms to gesture to the havoc, to the destruction that she was apparently spearheading. “These things really aren’t so scary at all, if you know how to control them.” And then, to illustrate her point, a rift opened not ten feet away, and a long black and purple serpent emerged from it, snaking its way through the air towards Tsubasa. Tsubasa ran a hand along its body as if the monster were nothing more than a domestic pet, and the creature seemed docile, perhaps even _affectionate_ towards her, before it pivoted and plunged downward towards whatever section of Tokyo it intended to terrorize.

“Why?” Kotori demanded. That question was but one of hundreds she still wanted to ask, but it was the one that was managing to come through the loudest at the moment. To see Tsubasa Kira, once the most famous, most powerful Magical Girl to have ever lived, once a shining symbol of hope for all of Tokyo, doing something like _this_ … she just couldn’t fathom it.

“Why?” Tsubasa repeated, her expression falling now, growing stoic and disdainful. “Are we really doing this? Because I can,” she said. “Do I need any other reason?”

“This isn’t you,” Kotori said. She knew it wasn’t, it _couldn’t_ have been. She didn’t know what sort of trick was responsible for this, but looking at the woman in front of her, she couldn’t believe for a moment that it was the same Tsubasa she had once known. Physically, perhaps, but whatever was inside Tsubasa wasn’t the same Tsubasa she remembered. But whatever this _thing_ was, Kotori’s words didn’t seem to reach it.

“So quick to slip into denial, aren’t you?” Tsubasa sighed out. “I had hoped that we could have a more emotional reunion, but if this is the way you’re going to behave then I really don’t have an interest in dragging this out any longer.” As she spoke she raised a hand, pointing two fingers towards Kotori, thumb stretched straight up into the air. “Let’s finish this quickly.”

“You don’t want to do this,” Kotori pleaded. “I know this isn’t you. And the real you- you have to still be in there somewhere. Think about what you’re doing.” But even then, her words still seemed to fall on deaf ears.

“Goodbye, Kotori,” Tsubasa said. And then a blinding flash engulfed them- but it didn’t come from Tsubasa.

An arrow came soaring through the sky, burning as brightly as the sun, shot with such precision that Tsubasa would have lost a hand to it if she hadn’t vaulted backwards at the last moment. Her head whipped towards the side, as did Kotori’s, both of them looking towards the source. And in doing so, they saw that reinforcements had arrived.

Umi Sonoda was floating a short distance away from them, a radiant blue bow clutched in one hand as another arrow materialized in the other. She notched the arrow to take aim at Tsubasa, and the look on her face was _furious_.

“Get the hell away from her,” Umi growled. “ _Now_.”

“This was a private conversation, you know,” Tsubasa replied. “It’s terribly rude of you to interrupt. Deal with this intrusion for me, won’t you, Anju?”

“Of course, Tsubasa-chan!” Anju replied cheerfully, already flying forward, stretching her arms out to her sides. Two barriers appeared around Umi, one on either side, and then Anju slammed her hands together, and the barriers slammed inward as well. Umi barely had time to react, lifting her bow overhead and holding it horizontal to jam the two walls before they crushed her, and even then she could feel them continuing to try to push inward, causing her to grit her teeth and forcing her to maintain her focus even more so her bow wouldn’t shatter underneath the pressure.

“You’re a feisty one, huh?” Anju hummed. “Not gonna die so easi-” And that was as much as she got to say before she was blasted out of the sky by another arrow coming from behind her.

Anju was sent ragdolling through the air as the arrow impacted her back and exploded, and she tumbled twenty or so feet downward before she was able to right herself again and stop her descent. Looking back up, another figure had arrived on the scene: Honoka Kousaka, floating a good distance away, holding a bow that looked identical to Umi’s, save for a small change in coloration; a faint orange, compared to Umi’s deep blue.

“Sneaking up on me, hmm?” Anju chided. “That’s not very fair of you.”

“That’s what you get for messing with my friends!” Honoka shouted back.

“Honoka!” Umi called out, swinging her bow from side to side to shatter the walls now that Anju’s concentration had broken. “Get Kotori!”

“Right!” Pivoting where she was Honoka swung her own bow around, immediately fitting another arrow and aiming it towards Erena before firing it off. Erena seemed ready to respond, raising a hand to fire off another coil of chains, which soared through the air ready to intercept the arrow. They succeeded in doing so- but Erena failed to notice the shimmering orange set of chains flying along behind the first attack until it was too late.

Erena cried out in surprise as chains that looked shockingly similarly to her own coiled around her body and immobilized her, with Honoka holding tight to the other end. The moment Erena was restrained Honoka swung the chains, cracking Erena through the air like the end of a whip, and hurling her directly towards the wall Kotori was bound against. Erena slammed against the wall with a thud and a crack that echoed through the sky, and the moment she impacted it the wall and the chains shattered, sending both Erena and Kotori falling towards the ground. Umi dove downwards to chase after Kotori, while Honoka turned her attention towards Tsubasa, who was beginning to look incredibly irritated.

“You ladies really don’t know when to quit, do you?” she sighed, raising her fingers to point them towards Honoka. “You’ve had your fun. Now die for me, like good little-” And then she was cut off yet again, this time by a massive shimmering pink fist slamming into her from the side.

“Our fun’s just starting, thank you very much!” Nico Yazawa called out, arriving on the scene flanked by the other two members of After School Navigators. Tsubasa was sent wheeling from the punch, though it only took her a moment to right herself again. When she did she looked even more angry than before, though her eyes were also quickly starting to scan the scene, taking in all the actors: Erena was back on her feet, but she looked badly hurt from the hit she’d taken. Anju was still at fighting strength. But Umi had caught Kotori, and Kotori was picking herself up now as well. Honoka had quickly proven herself to be a nuisance. And that was to say nothing of Nico, Rin, and Hanayo. All things equal, A-RISE were grossly outnumbered.

“Erena! Anju!” Tsubasa shouted, reluctance and irritation obvious in her tone and on her face. “We’re leaving.” As Tsubasa said that the air behind her split open, tearing into a rift- smaller than the ones Silence usually emerged from, and perfectly suited for the size of a human. A moment later similar rifts opened elsewhere, one behind Erena and one behind Anju.

“NO!” Kotori screamed out from below, her wings suddenly bursting outward again, whipping downward and hurling her up towards Tsubasa. She tore through the air, despite any injuries she might have suffered as she had been thrown around, and Tsubasa merely watched as Kotori came closer to her, slowly floating backwards into the rift behind her.

“It was lovely running into you again,” Tsubasa said, lips curling up into a cruel smile.

“Don’t you dare!” Kotori shouted.

“I’ll be seeing you around.” And then the rift sealed shut around Tsubasa and vanished, leaving Kotori’s hands to grab at the empty air where she had been just a moment before.

* * *

**1:14 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (9th Floor), Minato, Tokyo**

“Breath in. And out. In. And out. One more time.” Maki and Kotori were alone in one of the many conference rooms in 909’s offices, where the blinds were pulled down while Maki performed an impromptu medical examination on her old friend. Maki had rather famously gotten a pre-med degree before deciding to forgo medical school in favor of focusing on her Magical Girl career instead, and while she might not have been a doctor, she could at least provide quick assessment and first-aid when it was necessary. At the moment Kotori’s shirt was off, and Maki was listening to her breathing while poking around her abdomen and back.

“Everything sounds alright,” Maki eventually said, pulling back from Kotori and standing up again. “I doubt any ribs are broken or fractured, most likely just bruised. I’d still recommend getting a proper x-ray, though.”

“Right. Thank you,” Kotori replied, before reaching to put her shirt back on. Kotori was quiet as she spoke, and she was looking straight ahead, rather than towards Maki. She had been unusually quiet the entire way back to 909’s offices, in fact, though Maki supposed she couldn’t find that to be too surprising given the circumstances.

“I can go get you some ice,” Maki offered. “That should help with the swelling and the-” She was interrupted, though, by a knocking against the door, and Maki glanced towards it with a raised eyebrow for a moment before calling out. “Come in.”

As the door opened Honoka poked her head inside, with Umi standing right behind her, and Honoka’s eyes scanned around the room for a moment before looking towards Kotori. “Are you alright in here?” she asked. Kotori lifted her head to look back at her friends, and for a moment her expression was blank, before a painfully forced smile came onto her face.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” she said. But Maki could tell she wasn’t.

“I have to say,” Umi said, following Honoka into the room and coming to stand close to Kotori. “When you said you were going to be back in Tokyo… I didn’t expect the circumstances of our reunion to be anything like this. I’m sorry this had to happen.”

“You don’t have anything to be apologizing for,” Kotori replied, shaking her head. “I should be thanking you, actually. If you and Honoka-chan hadn’t shown up when you did…”

“We don’t need to think about that,” Umi insisted. “Right now I’m just… I’m worried about you. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I just finished giving her a once over and she doesn’t seem to have any serious injuries,” Maki chimed in, though she knew full-well Umi hadn’t meant physically.

“Listen to me,” Honoka said, suddenly leaning forward and clapping her hands onto both of Kotori’s cheeks, causing Kotori to bolt upright in her chair in surprise. “I know that what happened today is a lot. But this is actually a good thing!” she insisted. “We know Tsubasa-chan is still out there now! We know she’s still alive! And I promise you, no matter what it takes, we’re gonna find a way to bring her back.” Honoka had no way of being able to promise that. She didn’t have a clue what was happening with A-RISE, or what the future held, any more than any of them did. But when Honoka Kousaka said things, she had a way of making people believe them. Maki even found herself compelled to trust Honoka, even though the promise hadn’t been directed towards her, and she could tell from the now at least slightly genuine smile appearing on Kotori’s face that she felt similarly.

“Okay,” she said, nodding back at Honoka. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” another voice cut in, and Maki glanced back to see Eli standing in the doorway, sleeves of her dress shirt rolled up, jacket nowhere to be found. Clearly, she had been stressing while the others had been out of the office. “Are you all finished in here, Maki-chan?”

“Yeah, I just wrapped up,” Maki replied.

“Excellent. In that case, could I see you up in my office?”

* * *

**1:19 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (20th Floor), Minato, Tokyo**

Maki had followed Eli up to her office on the top floor of the building and, upon arriving, had quickly found that they wouldn’t be alone up there. Nozomi was standing next to Eli’s desk, as she so often did, and the members of Little Demons were there as well, all waiting for Eli to return. From the bandages on her arms it seemed that Ruby had gotten some medical attention since Maki had last seen her. Good.

As they entered the office Eli circled around her desk and went to sit in her chair, and Maki stood next to her trainees, waiting to be told why Eli had gathered them there- though really, she already had a fairly good guess.

“As everyone in Tokyo is surely aware by now,” Eli started, “we’re suddenly facing an absolutely unprecedented onslaught of Silence attacks. You four were on site when it happened and radioed back the first report, so I want to get your first-hand account of what you saw.”

“I’m not sure what else I can tell you that hasn’t already been said,” Maki replied. “We were patrolling through Shinjuku as per usual when a single Silence came out of the sky. These three engaged it and dealt with it easily enough,” she explained, gesturing towards the trio beside her. “Then as soon as it was defeated, ten other rifts must have opened up at once. And they just kept coming.”

“And A-RISE?” Eli asked.

“Showed up a little bit after,” Maki answered. “They came out of a rift too, attacked Kotori, then seemed to retreat back into more rifts when they realized they were outnumbered.”

“Was there anything strange about that first Silence you encountered?” Eli asked, turning her attention down the line towards Little Demons. They thought for a moment, but then Ruby shook her head, speaking up.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah,” Yoshiko agreed. “It seemed normal. I mean… As normal as any of them.”

“I see,” Eli sighed out, obviously disappointed by the answer, though she didn’t exactly seem surprised. “I suppose it was setting my expectations a little too high to think you would have an answer that would make this all make sense. Nozomi,” she then said, glancing sideways towards her wife. “Are reports still coming in?”

“They are,” Nozomi said, looking down at that tablet that seemed to be constantly attached to her hands at this point. “The rifts appear to be spreading west into Nakano and further south into Shibuya. From what I’m hearing they’re not showing any signs of letting up.”

“Wonderful,” Eli groaned, shutting her eyes and letting out another deep sigh, before opening them again and looking towards Maki. “Are you alright to be sent back out?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Maki replied, nodding. “I’m feeling okay.”

“Good. Go get ready, I’ll have Nozomi send you more detailed dispatch orders as soon as we figure out where you’re needed. As for your three,” Eli went on, now turning back to the members of Little Demons while Maki left the room. “I’m terribly sorry this happened on your first day. For now I need you to make it home safely, take care of any injuries you sustained today, and rest up as much as possible.” Upon saying that there was a momentary pause, but it was clear Little Demons weren’t jumping to comply with that instruction. They all looked more startled than anything, and after another second or two Ruby spoke up again.

“You just… Want us to go back home?” she asked.

“Like hell we’re gonna go back home!” Yoshiko cut in, speaking with just a bit less tact and decorum than Ruby. “Let us back out there!”

“I understand why you want to go back out and fight again, I really do,” Eli said, meeting Little Demons with a firm gaze of her own. “But right now you would only be putting yourselves in unnecessary danger. You’re still new and inexperienced, and what’s happening right now is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Plus, that’s to say nothing of the fact that one of you is injured at the moment.”

“I’m not that injured,” Ruby insisted. “I can still fight just fine.”

“And if we don’t go back out,” Hanamaru added on, “other people will get hurt too. The city needs us right now.”

“The city doesn’t need you getting in over your head and getting hurt even worse,” Eli replied. “It will be best for-”

“Elichi,” Nozomi interrupted, causing Eli to look towards her with surprise halfway through her sentence. “We’re already spread thin as it is. I’m calling in every unit we have, and it’s still not enough to respond to the number of reports we’re getting. We’re not exactly in any position to be turning down this sort of help at the moment, are we?” For a moment Eli didn’t respond, and it was clear from the surprised look on her face that she hadn’t been expecting her wife to disagree with her.

“That still doesn’t mean we can be reckless,” she eventually said. “We can’t just start sending our groups out without a care in the world for their safety.”

“I’ll personally see to it that these young ladies are only dispatched to low threat zones,” Nozomi replied. “But any presence in those areas is better than no presence at all, right?” Once more it took Eli a moment to reply, and it was obvious that it was harder for her to argue against Nozomi than it was to argue against Little Demons themselves.

“Fine,” she eventually sighed, an obvious reluctance to her voice- one that wasn’t matched by the excitement on the faces of Little Demons’ members. “Go get yourselves ready to head back out as well. I’ll have Nozomi send you your dispatch orders too.”

“Thank you!” Ruby said, directing her words as much towards Nozomi as she was towards Eli. “We won’t make you regret this, I promise!” With that she started to hurry out of the room, and Yoshiko and Hanamaru followed, eager to get out before Eli changed her mind. Soon enough Eli was left alone with Nozomi, and she slumped down in her chair, still staring towards the doorway.

“If those girls get killed their blood is on our hands, you know,” she said.

“Have a little faith in them,” Nozomi replied. “I think they’ve proved they deserve it.”

* * *

**1:28 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (2nd Floor), Minato, Tokyo**

If the staging area had felt chaotic earlier that morning, it had descended into outright pandemonium now. Nozomi clearly hadn’t been lying when she’d said she had called on every group 909 had signed, and there must have been fifty people in that room at the moment, all of them scrambling to get ready and get their orders so they could head back out into the city as quickly as possible.

Ruby was doing her best to shut out the overwhelming barrage of sights and sounds, instead focusing solely on herself. Her body was still aching slightly- more than she cared to admit, honestly. Maybe she had been lying when she’d told Eli it wasn’t that bad, just a little bit. It was far too late to get cold feet now, though, and Ruby was determined to go back out and keep fighting. This was what she had been training for, after all.

Before regrouping with her teammates and preparing to leave the offices Ruby was taking one more trip back to her locker, where she’d stashed her phone that morning and hadn’t checked on it since. She twisted the padlock dial around to input her combination, then pried the door open to see that her belongings were still there. Reaching underneath her folded up sweatshirt she felt around for a few seconds until she found her phone, then pulled it out and turned the screen on. And her heart stopped when she saw the dozen missed calls from Dia.

Opening up the call log Ruby could see that the calls had come in over a period of time, the first starting a few minutes after the Silence attacks had started happening all over Tokyo, and the most recent coming just two minutes ago. They had gotten more frequent as time had gone on, first spaced out by almost ten minutes, and then gradually growing more and more constant. And then, right on this new schedule that she was on, Ruby’s screen suddenly changed, and her phone vibrated in her hand as Dia called her yet again.

Ruby’s mouth felt dry as she moved her finger down to the screen, and for a second she just stood there, mentally preparing herself as her finger hovered over the “Accept Call” button. Eventually, though, she managed to press it, lifting her phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Ruby!” Dia blurted out on the other end. “Oh, thank god. Are you alright? Where have you been?”

“I’m okay,” Ruby promised her. “I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. My phone was in a locker.” It was strange, hearing Dia’s voice for the first time in three weeks. And beyond that… It was strange that Dia seemed to _care_. For almost a month now she had acted like she didn’t even care if Ruby was still alive. And now she was acting like that mattered to her more than anything in the world. Ruby wanted to say it felt nice, but… she didn’t know if she could.

“Well, I’m just glad to know you’re alright,” Dia said from the other end. “I saw everything that was happening on the news, and heard the reports, and I got worried. And then you weren’t answering your phone and I just… I started to assume the worst. I was terrified for you, Ruby.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruby said again. “But I promise, I’m okay.”

“That’s good,” Dia said. “Listen. It’s dangerous out there right now. Just… Come back to the office, okay? It’s safe here. Much safer than being out on the streets.” Oh. Of course that was what Dia wanted. Ruby’s expression fell as she heard those words, and she hesitated for a few seconds before answering.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” A pause, and then Dia’s response.

“What?”

“I’m just about to head back out again. On duty. I can’t come back to the office right now.”

“Ruby,” Dia protested. “Think about what you’re saying. You’ve seen what it’s like out there. You’ve seen how dangerous it is.”

“That’s exactly why I need to be out there,” Ruby said. “People need me. The city needs me.”

“The city has other people to protect it!” Dia tried to argue. “It doesn’t need you out there as well!”

“It needs as many people as possible right now,” Ruby answered, keeping her tone steady, almost emotionless, even as Dia raised her voice louder. “I’m sorry, onee-chan. I’m not changing my mind on this.”

“Ruby!” Dia said, voice reaching up to a shout now. “Just listen to me, for once! You can’t go out there! It’s dangerous! You’ll get yourself killed! Just come back to our office, and stay here where it’s safe! Ruby! RUBY!” But then Dia’s voice got quieter as Ruby moved her phone away from her ear, and was finally cut off entirely as Ruby ended the call.

* * *

**1:31 pm, May 7th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

Dia stared down at her phone, lying on the floor in front of her. From where she was standing she could see that her screen had gone black, and it was cracked now. Her hands were still shaking, her chest was still tight, she still felt sick to her stomach. Dia clenched her fists together tightly, digging her nails into her palms, and she tried to force herself to breathe. Once in, once out. Once in, once out. Over and over, until she finally managed to shove the nausea and the anger and the panic back down enough to step forward and pick her phone up. Now wasn’t the time to be losing her composure.

Dia walked to the door of her office and pushed it open, stepping back out into the central area of Ohara Incorporated, where Mari was already sitting with a laptop out in front of her. As Dia entered Mari glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow up.

“Did you manage to get in touch with Ruby-chan?” she asked.

“I did,” Dia replied, as if Mari wouldn’t have been able to hear the shouting coming from her office.

“And she’s alright?”

“She is.”

“That’s good.” Mari was at least merciful enough not to ask any other questions after that, and as she turned her eyes back to the laptop in front of her Dia moved closer, peering at the screen over Mari’s shoulder. Mari had two different windows pulled up at the moment: one was a map of Tokyo, with an overlay of every reported Silence attack that was currently taking place, and GPS icons showing the locations of Three Mermaids' and Saint Snow's members, while the second appeared to be a news aggregator, constantly updating with the latest headlines and journalists’ social media posts about what was happening.

“How are things looking out there?” Dia asked, though one look at the screen was enough to answer her question.

“It’s just getting worse and worse,” Mari replied, brow furrowing. “They’re not stopping.”

“And A-RISE?”

“Haven’t come back again yet. Mysterious, isn’t it?” Mari asked. She looked back over her shoulder at Dia as she said that, and somehow, despite the situation, she had it in herself to curl her lips into a devious little smile. “They vanish for five years and then they come back alongside a Silence attack magnitudes larger than anything else this city has ever seen. It can’t just be a coincidence, can it?”

“Obviously it’s not a coincidence,” Dia replied, though that still didn’t answer the question of what actually _was_ happening. If A-RISE were somehow controlling the Silence that was already baffling enough on its own. As far as anyone had ever known Silence were just mindless, feral monsters. They didn’t think, and they didn’t answer to any master. They just were. And even if A-RISE somehow _were_ the ones controlling the Silence, that still didn’t answer _why_. Why, after such a long and successful career of fighting these monsters, of protecting Tokyo and the people in it, would they turn on all of it like this? No part of it made sense.

“I suppose this isn’t all bad,” Mari went on. “A-RISE were the undisputed champions for the better part of a decade. If they do show their faces again, and one of our groups manages to take them down, that would really put Ohara Incorporated in the spotlight.”

“Take this seriously,” Dia huffed back. “This is a crisis. But speaking of our groups… How are they faring out there? Have they been reporting back to you?”

“They have,” Mari assured Dia. “They still seem to be holding strong for the time being. Saint Snow is up to… Six kills so far, I believe? And Three Mermaids is trailing just behind them at four.”

“They’re pushing themselves too hard,” Dia muttered. “They weren’t trained for anything as sustained as this.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Kanan trained them rather brutally, didn’t she?” Mari asked, with an obvious note of spite in her voice. Dia’s brow creased down further at that, lips twisting into a small frown, but after a moment she asked the next question on her mind.

“Where is she, anyway?”

“Where is Kanan?” Mari repeated. “You expect me to know that?”

“You know her as well as I do,” Dia said. “She’s certainly out there right now. I thought she might have checked in.”

“She’s not our employee, Dia. She has no reason to check in with us.” Dia was quiet in response to that for another moment, and then she spoke again.

“Give her a call.” This time it was Mari who didn’t respond immediately, turning to stare back at Dia in blank silence.

“You’re asking _me_ to do that.”

“My phone is broken.”

“You were using it two minutes ago.”

“And it’s broken now.”

“Use your office phone.”

“Will you just call her?” Dia snapped, prompting a very melodramatic sigh from Mari.

“Fine, fine,” she muttered, picking her own phone up off the table beside her. She opened it and tapped on the screen a few times, before setting it back on the table in front of her, with the volume turned to speaker. It rang a few times, and then a voice came on from the other side.

“What do you want?”

“A pleasure to talk to you, too,” Mari said, before Dia cut in.

“Kanan,” she said. “It’s me. Where are you right now?”

“Shibuya,” Kanan replied. “I’m responding to calls. Do you need something?”

“We wanted to check in with you,” Dia said, though the word “we” was used generously in that sentence. “Saint Snow and Three Mermaids are still out in the city as well, and we have a map of reported Silence attacks. If you’ll check in with us we can help direct you.”

“You’re not my boss, Dia,” came Kanan’s reply, earning gritted teeth from Dia, and an exasperated eye roll from Mari.

“I was under no illusions that I was,” Dia replied. “This isn’t about that. If you coordinate with us we can make sure you’re spending your time and your energy as optimally as possible. It’s about what’s best for the entire city.” A pause followed that, before Kanan gave a very halfhearted sounding response.

“Fine. Whatever,” she said. “I’m on top of the Park Hotel right now. What’s closest?” Dia frantically motioned to Mari as Kanan asked that, and Mari scrolled through the map she had pulled up, eyes scanning around it for a few seconds before she answered.

“There’s a reported sighting one block south of Yoyogi Station,” she said. “Nobody’s responded to it yet. Head there.”

“Got it,” Kanan said. “I’ll check back in once that’s dealt with.”

“Be careful out there,” Dia said.

“Don’t get yourself hurt,” Mari added on.

“And here I thought I was the hypocrite,” Kanan said, before the call cut to an end. Dia let out an exasperated sigh the second it was over, shutting her eyes for a long moment, before opening them to look down at Mari again.

“So you two are getting along just fine, I see.”

“I never promised to be nice to her,” Mari replied, turning her nose up at Dia.

“I told you ahead of time I intended to bring her in. You could have stopped me.”

“Funny,” Mari said. “I can’t help but feel like we’ve already had this conversation.

“It was as true about Sarah as it is now,” Dia insisted. “Or are you still doing this whole ‘let me suffer from my mistakes on my own’ thing?”

“One of these days you’re bound to learn your lesson.”

“Or you could just tell me what you want from me for once in your goddamn life,” Dia snapped. “It’s so easy for you to sit there and criticize when I fuck up, but the moment I ask you for your opinion you’re silent.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for that,” Mari replied. “I suppose I haven’t felt especially motivated to speak my mind, considering the last time I tried I got accused of wanting to send a trio of young women to their deaths. ‘Willing to send our employees on a suicide mission just to spite me.’ That was what you said, wasn’t it?”

“That’s-”

“Different?” Mari asked. “Face it, Dia. You’ll say you want my input, but you don’t. At the end of the day you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and there’s nothing I could say to stop you. Looking at it that way,” she mused, propping her cheek against her hand and looking at Dia with a smile that cut right down to the center of Dia’s being, “I guess you and Ruby-chan have quite a bit in common.”

“Fuck you,” was all Dia was able to muster in response, before she turned away from Mari and stormed back towards her office. She didn’t know what she was even going to do in there, but anything was better than putting up with this for another second.

* * *

**???, ???, ????  
** **World of the Silence**

The landscape was eerie and dark, barren expanses of deep purple rock stretching out in every direction. At places it stretched up into spires or cavernous mountains, but in just as many places it ran flat for miles in every direction. The sky overhead was pitch black, though it was dotted with tears that lead through to a brighter scene: one of Tokyo, exciting and colorful even in the middle of the attacks that were plaguing it.

Across the landscape walked three figures, the only humans to be found in a world otherwise populated only by monsters. They walked close together, though they didn’t seem perturbed or intimidated by their surroundings, no matter how bleak they might have been.

“Was it strange?” Anju asked, following along to one side of Tsubasa, while Erena walked at her other. “Seeing her again after so long?”

“Should it have been?” Tsubasa replied.

“You loved her once, didn’t you?”

“Once,” Tsubasa agreed. “But that was years ago. Looking in her eyes today… I didn’t feel a thing.”

“So cold, Tsubasa-chan,” Anju giggled. “She would be heartbroken to hear you say that.”

“She _should_ be dead,” Erena said. “What happened to us today was a disgrace. Although… I can’t help but be a little flattered by it as well. It feels good, knowing how many people we apparently inspired.”

“You’re not going to say you’re proud of them now, are you?” Tsubasa teased.

“Not at all,” Erena replied. “I’m proud of us.”

“Well regardless of how today went, now we’ve learned not to underestimate them,” Tsubasa went on, eventually coming to stop at the mouth of a wide, dark cave, jutting into one of the landscape’s jagged mountains. “Next time we’ll be prepared.”

“You think we’ll be able to handle them next time?” Erena asked.

“Perhaps,” Tsubasa replied. “And perhaps not. But either way,” she said, reaching out a hand and placing it against the edge of the cave’s entrance as a bellowing, earth-shattering roar shook the mountain itself from deep within, “it’s not really our concern.”


	10. Reunion

**2:05 pm, May 9th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

Two days had passed since the Silence attacks had started around Tokyo, and so far they weren’t showing any signs of letting up. Every agency in the city was on high alert, dispatching every star they could, and even then they were spread thin. Every time a Silence was struck down, it felt like two more emerged to take its place. After two days of non-stop fighting, people were starting to reach their limit.

Maki was exhausted as she made her way back from the vending machines, carrying an energy drink in one hand and a packet of trail mix in the other, hoping that would be enough to get her perked back up again. She had been out since six in the morning, and this was the first break she had taken all day. Eight hours was already well past the length of a normal patrol, and this patrol had been far more demanding than usual as well, given that she had been fighting for nearly every minute of it. Even then, she still intended to be back out on the streets as soon as she could. But even a professional like herself needed to rest eventually.

Returning to one of the office’s many lounge areas, Maki found she wasn’t alone in that: Little Demons and After School Navigators were both already sitting around on the couches and armchairs, all of them looking just as exhausted as Maki herself. Rin was slamming back an energy drink that, based on the empty can already sitting next to her, appeared to be her second in a row, Hanayo was doing stretches on the floor with a pained look on her face, Yoshiko was holding an ice pack against her shoulder, Ruby was fumbling with a bottle of painkillers. Kotori was there as well, sitting around with the rest of the group, though she didn’t look exhausted the same way the rest of them did- not physically, at least. Kotori had long since left the mantle of a Magical Girl behind, and as such she hadn’t been out fighting the way the others had been. Still, despite having booked a hotel for her trip back to Tokyo, she had been spending a lot of time at 909’s offices, even passing out on a couch there at one point. Her exhaustion might not have been physical, but Maki couldn’t imagine any of this was easy on her.

“How are you all holding up?” Maki asked, making her way over to one of the open seats and sitting herself down.

“How do we look?” Nico grunted back, and the fact that Nico, of all people, acknowledged that she was looking like shit at the moment was about as much as Maki needed to hear.

“Are you going back out?” Maki asked.

“Soon,” Hanayo grunted from the floor, finally pulling herself back from the stretch she was in the middle of. “As soon as we can.”

“Well, don’t push yourselves too hard.” The comment was directed towards Hanayo and the rest of After School Navigators, technically, but really, it had been said more for the benefit of the newbies in the room. Maki was sure that, after working in the industry for so long, Nico and the rest of her group would know their limits. She wasn’t sure if she could say the same for Little Demons.

“So many of you all in one place,” another voice called out, and Maki looked back over her shoulder to see Eli entering from down the hall, with Nozomi walking along at her side. Just as she had been for the past two days, Eli looked exhausted, possibly even more so than any of the active Magical Girls themselves. That didn’t surprise Maki either; she wasn’t sure that Eli had actually left the office at all since the attacks had started. The rest of them had at least gone home once or twice and had managed to get a bit of sleep, as restless as it might have been, but if Eli had slept at all during the past two days it had absolutely been at her own desk. Eli’s hair was messy, there were bags under her eyes, and Maki was almost sure she was still wearing the same clothing she had been wearing when all of this had started.

“Are you all doing okay?” Nozomi asked. “Can I get anyone anything?” Nozomi at least looked a little bit better than her wife at the moment, though that wasn’t a difficult bar to clear. Maki wasn’t entirely sure how Nozomi was managing to keep herself together like this either, given that she was certain Nozomi had been here just as long as Eli had, and had been working just as hard and sleeping just as little. Maybe she was just better at this sort of thing.

“We’re okay,” Yoshiko replied, though Maki could tell enough to know that Yoshiko was only saying that because the boss was around. Little Demons, she had quickly discovered, were stubborn. They wanted to help as much as they could, even if they were pushing themselves past their limits. If Yoshiko thought there was a chance that admitting how tired she really was would get her pulled from duty, she wasn’t going to do that.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Nozomi said, before turning her attention over towards Kotori, who had been sitting silently off to the side while this conversation had been taking place. “I’m surprised to see you’re still here as well, Kotori-chan.”

“That’s not a problem, is it?” Kotori asked, looking startled when she was singled out like that.

“Not at all,” Nozomi replied, shaking her head. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like.” Hearing that appeared to give Kotori some small amount of reassurance, at least.

“Are you all still planning to go back out soon?” Eli asked, turning her attention between the two groups present, and then Maki. She was met with nods from all of them, and while that should have been good news on a larger strategic sense, it still ended up earning a small, weary sigh from her. “Alright,” she said. “If you want to keep fighting I’m not going to stop you. Just make sure none of you are pushing yourselves too hard.”

“We’re alright, Rin promises!” Rin declared, tossing aside the energy drink can she had finally finished slamming back, wiping her mouth with a dramatic flourish. “Give it five minutes for the caffeine to kick in and we’ll be ready to go!”

“Caffeine is no replacement for rest and a proper diet, you know,” Eli chided, though that only earned her a bit of laughter from Nozomi.

“You’re really not one to talk, Elichi,” she teased. “How many cups of coffee deep are you right now?”

“I’ve lost count,” Eli groaned back, looking back over the room one more time. “I’m heading back up to my office,” she said. “Don’t hesitate to come find me if you need anything.” With that she turned and started to walk out of the lounge, towards the elevators, with Nozomi following along beside her once more. The pair were quiet as they went, at least until they were out of sight of their employees, though once they reached the elevator and pressed the button, waiting for it to arrive, Eli turned her attention over towards Nozomi.

“How are things looking out there?” she asked. At that question Nozomi moved her tablet out from where she had been carrying it under her arm, turning the screen on and looking over it for a few seconds. Even before she actually answered, the grim look on her face told Eli just about everything she needed to know.

“The same as it's been,” Nozomi replied. “Still no sign of the attacks letting up. And they’re still coming in faster than we can respond to them.”

“What about other agencies?” Eli asked. 909 might have been the largest and most renowned agency in Tokyo, but they were far from the only one, and with this many attacks happening simultaneously many of the smaller agencies had finally been getting their day in the sun as well. It was very much an all hands on deck situation, and Eli wasn’t going to turn down any help they could get at this point.

“Once more, the same as it’s been,” Nozomi replied. “They’re certainly helping to pick up the slack, but… You know how it can be with those smaller groups.”

“I most certainly do,” Eli sighed. She didn’t want to disparage anyone else even on the best of days, let alone at a time like this, but the fact remained that 909 were the best in the industry for a reason. Their teams were more well trained and more effective than anyone else out there, and they could often deal with three Silence in the time it might have taken another group from another agency to deal with one. That was to say nothing of the logistics of it either; usually, when there was only a single Silence attack happening at a time, it was easy to work on a first-on-the-scene basis. With attacks happening at this scale, however, and with every agency in Tokyo operating independently, that became much more chaotic. Multiple groups responded to the same call, they got in each other’s ways, manpower wasn’t efficiently distributed, and all around, it was chaos. Amidst all that chaos, however there was one agency in particular that had still been managing to catch Eli’s attention time and time again… “What about Ohara Incorporated?” she asked.

“What about them?” Nozomi asked, lips curling up into a knowing smile.

“Are things still going the same way with them?” Saint Snow and Three Mermaids were, out of all the Magical Groups in Tokyo, the only ones that were actually giving 909’s groups a run for their money. Several times over now one of 909’s units had started to respond to a call, only to be cut off before they arrived by Ohara Incorporated’s talent. Saint Snow and Three Mermaids weren’t the only ones doing this, of course, but it seemed the most frequent with them. Irritating, but also an undeniable testament to their efficiency and skill.

“I got a report from Morishima-san just a few minutes ago that she lost another kill to Saint Snow,” Nozomi said, scrolling through the constantly updating stream of reports on her screen. “It seems that’s not changing.”

“Interesting,” Eli said, mouth twisting sideways into a thoughtful expression as she watched the elevator’s indicator light up, and the doors open in front of her. “Say… I don’t suppose you have Ohara Incorporated’s number.”

“I’m sure I could find it with a quick search,” Nozomi replied.

“Do that,” Eli said, stepping forward onto the elevator with Nozomi just behind her. “I think it’s time we give them a call.”

* * *

**2:33 pm, May 9th, 2030  
** **Chiyoda, Tokyo**

Leah doubled over on the edge of the sidewalk, hands on her knees, panting for breath as the remains of a Silence fell from the sky a short distance away and began to dissipate. She was exhausted, sweat dripping down her brow, limbs feeling heavy from how hard she was pushing herself. She shut her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to catch her breath, before she felt a hand against her back.

“You doing alright?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Leah insisted. “I’m okay. I just need a second.”

“If we need to go back to the office-”

“I’m okay. Really.” Leah opened her eyes again as she said that, looking up towards Sarah, who was standing over her with a concerned expression on her face. She didn’t look entirely convinced, but after a moment Sarah stepped backwards, giving a small nod.

“Alright,” she said. “If you’re sure. I’ll call Dia and see where to head next. Sit down while I talk to her. Get something to drink,” she added, gesturing towards the vending machines a short distance away that had, notably, been smashed open during the chaos. Surely nobody would miss a single bottle of soda at this point, especially when it was going to a good cause.

“Alright,” Leah agreed, forcing herself upright and walking towards the vending machine, while Sarah started walking down the street in the other direction, pressing her finger to her earpiece.

“Dia,” she said. “It’s me. We just finished up in Chiyoda. Where should we head next?” It was a moment before she got a response, and then she heard Dia’s voice coming back from the other end.

“You’re still staying out there?”

“We’re still feeling alright. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to pack it in.”

“I desperately wish I could believe that was true,” Dia said, words punctuated by a heavy sigh. “I’ve got half a mind not to tell you anything, just so you’ll have to take a break.”

“You really think that would stop us?” Sarah replied. “You don’t give us orders, we’ll just wander the city until we find something on our own. Won’t be hard, given the situation.”

“Still,” Dia insisted. “You’ve been out there since this morning. You have to be reaching your limit by now.”

“We’ll reach our limit when we reach it,” Sarah said, before trying another tactic. “Think about it this way: every Silence we kill is one less your sister has to worry about.”

“I very much wish you wouldn’t bring her up,” Dia scolded, though Sarah couldn’t feel bad about it- especially given that it seemed to have worked. “There’s another attack three blocks north and one block west of your current location. It doesn’t appear that anyone’s responding to it yet. Head that way.”

“Understood,” Sarah said. “We’ll get up there ASAP.”

“Good. But… Be careful,” Dia added on. “I really don’t need you pushing yourself too hard out there. Heaven forbid something should end up happening to you because you tried to keep going past your limit.”

“Dia Kurosawa,” Sarah teased, unable to stop herself from grinning a bit as she spoke. “If I didn’t know any better I would think you actually cared about me.”

“Well… I do,” Dia admitted. “I care about you a lot.” There was a small pause after that, and then Sarah heard Dia inhale deeply, before she started to speak again. “I-”

“You don’t love me,” Sarah interrupted. “You’re just scared.” Another pause, before Dia spoke again.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll check in again once this next one’s done with,” Sarah said. “Talk to you soon.” She pulled her fingers away from her earpiece after that, and on the other end of the line Dia was left sitting there in the middle of Ohara Incorporated’s offices, looking across the room towards Mari, who had certainly overhead all of that. Mari wasn’t reacting, at least, eyes still glued to her own computer screen while she continued monitoring the situation around the city, as she had been for the last while now. She had been keeping up with Three Mermaids, while Dia had been dealing with Saint Snow, figuring that was the easiest way to allocate their efforts.

“I just sent Saint Snow to the attack near Akihabara,” Dia commented, prompting a nod from Mari.

“Noted,” Mari replied. “I’ll take that off the list.”

“Thank you.” All the while as they spoke Mari never lifted her eyes from her computer screen, and another few seconds passed before Dia spoke up again. “Are you still angry with me?”

“I’m not angry with you,” Mari replied, in a tone of voice that wasn’t at all convincing.

“God dammit,” Dia groaned. “Look, if you’re going to be-” At that point, however, she was interrupted by the office phone starting to ring, and she glanced over towards it to see the caller ID, only to realize it wasn’t a number she recognized. “Do you know who this is?” Mari peered over as well, before shaking her head.

“Answer it.”

“I know.” Reaching out to grab the phone Dia lifted it to her ear, clearing her throat once before putting on her best professional voice. “Ohara Incorporated, this is Dia Kurosawa. How can I help you?”

“Kurosawa-san,” a voice came from the other end. “I’m glad I managed to reach you. This is Eli Ayase calling from 909 Talent Agency. I was hoping you might have the chance to speak for a bit.”

* * *

**4:25 pm, May 9th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (10th floor), Minato, Tokyo**

Getting across the city was difficult at the moment, for obvious reasons. Many of the neighborhoods and roads were completely locked down, and the trains were running on a very minimal schedule. Despite that Mari and Dia had, eventually, managed to find their way from Nakano to Minato, and had arrived at the towering building that was home to 909 Talent Agency. Dia had always dreamed of getting to tour this building and, even more than that, of getting to meet any of the members of µ's, Eli Ayase in particular. That said, she had always hoped it would happen under slightly better circumstances. And especially right now, she couldn’t say she was happy to be there.

When they had first arrived at the building Dia had spoken with a receptionist, at which point she and Mari had been led to a conference room on one of the higher floors. They’d sat there for a few minutes before Eli Ayase and Nozomi Toujou had arrived to meet with them, and while such an encounter normally would have left Dia babbling and starstruck, she couldn’t help but feel cynical and irritated now instead.

“Thank you for taking the time to come here today,” Eli began, sitting across the table from Dia and Mari while Nozomi, for once in her life, actually sat next to her. “I appreciate how quickly you were able to make it here, especially given the circumstances.”

“You know we would never turn down an invitation like this,” Mari replied, seeming a fair bit more cheerful and amicable than Dia was feeling. “A fissure could’ve opened up in the ground covering the entire distance between our offices and we still would have found a way to make it here.”

“You flatter us, really,” Eli said, laughing softly. “As I’m sure you’ve realized time is of the essence right now, though, so I’ll get directly to my point: we want your help.” Upon hearing that Dia’s brows creased down, and despite the caution she’d held coming into this she couldn’t help but be at least a little curious as well.

“Help with what?” she asked.

“The city is in the middle of an attack the likes of which it’s never seen,” Eli explained. “And as such, we’re all left scrambling to figure out the best way to deal with the situation and then enact those plans simultaneously. Tokyo has, at my last check, roughly three-hundred active Magical Girls, spread out across thirty-seven different agencies. 909 makes up a large portion of that number, but even then we’re still left with upwards of two-hundred Magical Girls who aren’t under our chain of command.”

“And?” Dia asked.

“And,” Eli went on, “in a situation like this, that’s proven to be problematic. If all three-hundred Magic Girls at our disposal were acting in unison we might have the manpower to deal with these attacks, but as it is, this entire situation is turning into a coordination nightmare. Having thirty-seven different managing bodies all giving orders at once isn’t an effective way to respond to a crisis. Groups get in each other’s ways, resources aren’t allocated effectively, and all in all, we waste time and effort in ways that wouldn’t be a problem if we had a single chain of command set to handle the issue.”

“And why exactly are you telling me all of this?” Dia asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

“Two reasons,” Eli said, lips curling into a small smile as she raised two fingers. “First of all, if we could only get one other agency in the entire city to agree to this proposal, we would want it to be yours. Despite the relatively small force you employ we’ve been keeping tabs on every group we possibly can, and both Saint Snow and Three Mermaids have been incredibly impressive in their ability to quickly and efficiently deal with these attacks. And beyond that…” Eli went on. “Ohara Incorporated is, at least to the best of my knowledge, the only other agency in all of Tokyo that’s headed up by former Magical Girls themselves. While it’s good to have business professionals who can help groups manage their images and their careers during quieter times, people who have spent their entire lives learning business skills simply don’t have the same understanding of the needs and capabilities of their talents the way you and I do, and they’re not prepared to respond to a crisis situation like this one. That’s why we need your help,” Eli concluded. “Not just to coordinate with 909, but to assist 909 in coordinating and managing Tokyo’s other agencies as well. You have a very unique and very useful skillset, Kurosawa-san. I hope you recognize that.”

As Eli finished speaking there was a stillness in the room. Dia was still staring back at Eli with the same stern, stoic expression she had been wearing since she had entered, and she wasn’t showing much in the way of what she thought about the proposition. From beside her Mari looked over towards Dia, waiting for a few seconds herself, though when Dia didn’t immediately speak she volunteered to do so instead.

“Well, I have to say, you’re flattering us quite a bit,” she chuckled. “Not to mention this sounds like a very well-reasoned plan, so we would-”

“We’re not doing it,” Dia interrupted, causing Mari to become visibly surprised. Nozomi seemed a little shocked as well, quickly stepping in to try to reason with Dia.

“We understand that this sort of coordination between different agencies is unusual,” she said. “But given the circumstances-”

“You’re damn right it’s unusual,” Dia interrupted, eyes still locked on Eli rather than Nozomi. “It’s unusual, and quite frankly, I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do here. 909 may be the biggest agency in Tokyo, and you may have a reputation for being the best, but that doesn’t give you the right to start bossing around the smaller agencies like someone put you in charge of the whole damn city. Ohara Incorporated is an independent company, as is every other agency in Tokyo, and we don’t have to answer to you or anyone else. We’re not going to kowtow to you just because you think you know how to handle this situation better than we do.” If Mari was surprised when Dia had interrupted her, she looked even more shocked now that she’d seen the open hostility Dia was showing, and the same could be said for Nozomi. Eli, however, despite the verbal lashing she had just received, hardly seemed bothered in the slightest. She stared back at Dia a few seconds longer, face still a picture-perfect image of professionalism and composure, and then she turned her attention over to the other two members of their meeting.

“Nozomi, Ohara-san, forgive me. Could we have the room for a moment?” Even Nozomi seemed surprised by that, despite how good she typically was at reading and predicting her wife, but after another moment she turned back to Mari and nodded, standing from her chair. Mari still seemed uncertain about the entire situation, but she wordlessly followed suit, and Nozomi escorted her out of the meeting room. Seconds later the door shut behind them again, leaving Dia and Eli alone, and the moment they were isolated Eli began to speak.

“Let’s cut through the bullshit, Kurosawa-san,” she said. “This is about your sister, isn’t it?” The moment Ruby was mentioned Dia’s anger and frustration swelled up even more than before, hands balling up tightly in her lap as she glared back at Eli.

“You have no right to bring that up,” she spat.

“I understand your frustration,” Eli replied, folding her hands neatly in front of her, keeping herself composed no matter how irritated Dia grew. “But right now this isn’t about you, or me, or Ruby-san, or our agencies, or anything else personal like that. Right now this is about putting aside personal feelings and doing what’s best for the city.”

“Doing what _you_ think is best for the city,” Dia retorted. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not especially inclined to trust your judgment at the moment.” Eli merely nodded back at her, taking even that insult with grace before she spoke again.

“Can I tell you something, Kurosawa-san?” she asked. Dia didn’t immediately respond, and Eli seemed to take that as an invitation to continue. “I have a younger sister of my own.” Hearing that was enough to surprise Dia, if only for a moment. She thought she knew Eli quite well, at least in a parasocial sort of way, and she had spent countless hours watching her fights and her interviews and gathering a truly embarrassing amount of Eli Ayase merchandise, and yet this was the first she’d heard of a sister. “Back when µ's was first starting out,” Eli continued, “she had dreams of following in the same footsteps and becoming a Magical Girl herself- of course, that always terrified me. Especially after working in the industry myself and seeing first-hand how dangerous it could be, I just couldn’t stomach the thought of my little sister going through something similar. Fortunately,” she went on, “that proved to be a short-lived dream. Arisa eventually got bored and moved on to other things, and now she’s working quite happily as a data analyst at a tech company in Osaka. But to this day, if she were to come into my office right now and ask me to sign her… I don’t know that I would be able to do it.

“I understand what it feels like to be worried about someone,” Eli continued. “I understand what it’s like to want to protect them, to not want to let them put themselves in danger. But I’ve also met your sister,” she said, locking eyes with Dia as she said that. “I’ve seen her drive. Her passion. Her talent. And I think you know as well as I do that it honestly never would have mattered what I said. You refused to sign her, so she came to me. And if I had refused to sign her, she would have kept kicking down the door to every agency in Tokyo until she finally found someone who was willing to give her a chance. She’s not the sort of person to give up before she gets what she wants. That’s an admirable trait, and it’s something you should be proud of her for. She’s going to do what she’s going to do,” Eli said, “regardless of what anyone else says or thinks. So if she’s going to be out there chasing after her dreams and putting herself in danger anyway… Wouldn’t it be better for her to have your support while she does it?”

Dia had been silent the entire time Eli had been speaking. Even now, after Eli finished, she still didn’t respond right away. Eli had been staring directly back at her, but at some point Dia had broken her eyes away, looking down at the table in front of her instead. Her hands were still balled up tightly in her lap, fists clenching together, and she could feel a nervous discomfort churning in her stomach.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she eventually said. “You barely know Ruby.”

“Maybe,” Eli agreed. “I won’t presume to know the intricate ins and outs of your relationship with her. But even in the short time I’ve known her I’ve been able to tell how much she misses you. That’s how obvious it is. There are hundreds of Magical Girls across this city, and they all have their own skills and talents to bring to the table, but there are things only you can do. Tokyo only has one Dia Kurosawa, and Ruby-san only has one older sister. And right now, both she and the city need you.” Another short pause followed that, and Dia still couldn’t bring herself to look at Eli during that time. But eventually, she spoke again.

“Is she here right now?”

“She should just be getting ready to head out again,” Eli replied, and though Dia couldn’t see it, Eli was smiling as she spoke. “Would you like to see her?”

* * *

**4:40 pm, May 9th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (2nd floor), Minato, Tokyo**

Dia couldn’t help but feel out of place as she stepped into 909’s staging area. The chaos hadn’t calmed down in the past few days, and there were still just as many people crammed into that space as there had been since the attacks had started. It was yet another thing that highlighted the vast difference in scope between 909 and Ohara Incorporated, and the fact that a good many of the faces present were ones Dia recognized wasn’t helping either. Under other circumstances she probably would have been starstruck, and she might not have been able to fight back the urge to run up to some of her favorite talents and start talking to them. Right now, however, there was only one person she wanted to find.

Dia’s eyes moved back and forth across the room, trying to make sense of the chaos, trying to pick out anyone specific from the massive, constantly moving throng. It was only made even more difficult by the bright outfits and colorful adornments that everyone was wearing- usually Ruby’s hair made her stand out in a crowd, but right now Dia didn’t even have that to go off of. She started to walk her way forward, pushing past as many people as she could while trying not to draw attention to herself, despite the fact that a few of the people present seemed to recognize her as well. Her eyes kept moving through the mass of people, looking over them one at a time, until Dia’s heart finally stopped as she saw Ruby at the far end of the room.

Ruby was standing with her back to Dia, facing the lockers in front of her, and she wasn’t alone. Two people were on either side of her, who Dia recognized as Hanamaru and Yoshiko- she didn’t know Ruby’s friends all that well, but she’d at least met them in passing by now. With her back turned Ruby hadn’t noticed Dia yet, and that only made this all the more difficult. For a few more seconds Dia just stood there, heart suddenly racing, mouth going dry. She wanted to step forward, but even the simple act of walking suddenly seemed like the hardest thing in the world, and she had to put entirely too much thought into putting one foot in front of the other, forcing herself to cross the room. There were still people all around her, bumping into her as she went, but Dia did her best to shut them out. She walked until she was just a few feet behind Ruby, and as she got closer she could overhear the conversation Ruby and her teammates were having.

“Toujou-san said something about Adachi,” Yoshiko was in the middle of saying. “We might be heading up there.”

“They’ve reached that far, zura?” Hanamaru asked.

“I’ve heard they’ve been sighted in every single ward by this point,” Ruby said. “They’re everywhere.”

“No shit?” Yoshiko groaned. “So much for getting a break I guess.” For a few seconds, as she listened in on their conversation, Dia just stood there and watched. She wanted to speak, but as she opened her mouth to try to do so the words didn’t want to come out. It was a struggle just to get herself to make any noise at all, and even when she did finally speak, it was with the simplest word possible.

“Ruby.” The moment Dia said that Ruby froze- Dia could tell even from behind- and the conversation she was having ground to a halt. Yoshiko looked over her shoulder towards Dia, as did Hanamaru, and finally, after a slightly longer pause, Ruby did the same. The expression on her face was more one of disbelief than anything, and Dia wasn’t sure what to make of that. Ruby didn’t look angry, at least, which Dia felt was better than it could have been- better than she deserved, honestly- though it was still hard to read, and it left Dia’s heart racing inside her chest, her whole body suddenly feeling light and jittery. A long moment passed between them, still and silent, before Ruby finally spoke.

“Onee-chan,” she said, though the name held no affection. “What are you doing here?”

“I- Ayase-san called me in for a meeting,” Dia began to explain. “And then she… She told me I could find you down here. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Hey,” Yoshiko said, leaning in beside Ruby while glancing between the sisters. “Do you want us to leave?” Ruby looked sideways at her friend as she asked that, then nodded.

“Yeah,” she replied. “Thanks.” Yoshiko nodded back, and then she and Hanamaru excused themselves, leaving Dia and Ruby alone- as alone as they could be in a room like this, at least. Once it was just the two of them another silence set in, and Dia suddenly realized that she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t seen Ruby in over three weeks, and now she had ended up down here on impulse. She hadn’t given thought to what she was actually going to say once she arrived.

“Why are you here?” Ruby eventually asked again, though her tone was more stern this time, and Dia could tell what it meant- Ruby wanted an _actual_ answer. She didn’t want to know why Dia was here at 909. She wanted to know why Dia was _here_ , talking to her. That was the harder part to answer. But Dia was going to try.

“I came here because… Because I wanted to apologize,” she admitted, and it was clear just from those words that Ruby was surprised.

“Apologize?” she repeated, and for a moment her expression was shocked, before it turned more stern again, more _cautious_. It pained Dia to realize this was how she’d taught her sister to act towards her. “Apologize for what?”

“For… For everything,” Dia replied. “I… You were right, about what you said. I haven’t been acting like a good sister recently- for quite a while, now. And for that I’m sorry." Swallowing her pride and admitting she was wrong was never something that had come easily to Dia. But right now, she knew she had to force herself to keep going. "Whenever you talked about becoming a Magical Girl…" she continued, "I was always afraid. I was afraid, because I know how dangerous it can be. And when you told me you’d come to 909 and had been signed here I was angry that you wouldn’t listen to me, and I became even more worried that something was going to happen to you, that you were going to get hurt or worse. But… I should have known that wouldn’t change anything. I should have known from the start that you were going to do this, with or without me. And if I can’t talk you out of putting yourself in danger like this… Then it would be terribly stupid and selfish of me not to do my best to support you through it. So that’s what I want to do, if you’ll let me. I want to be here for you, the way I should have been all along. I want to support you. And, most of all… I want you to know that I'm sorry, and that I’m proud of you. Please, forgive me.”

Ruby didn’t answer Dia right away- not verbally, at least. Instead she just threw herself forward the moment she was done speaking, arms suddenly wrapping around Dia, hugging her and clinging onto her tightly. Dia was startled at first, but after a moment a soft smile crossed over her face, and she reached up to wrap her arms around Ruby in turn. Ruby buried her face into Dia’s shoulder, and Dia could feel Ruby’s hands grabbing at the back of her shirt, holding onto her tightly. Ruby was starting to shake, Dia noticed, and a moment later she realized Ruby must have been crying.

“I missed you,” Ruby whispered out, voice so quiet and muffled that it was almost lost in the crowded room.

“I’m sorry,” Dia whispered back. “I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere. When this is over, let’s go out to dinner,” she suggested. “We never got to celebrate your signing. We can bring Tsushima-san and Kunikida-san, and we can go anywhere you want. My treat.”

“I’d like that,” Ruby said, nodding against Dia’s shoulder.

“And you can tell me all your stories, everything I’ve missed,” Dia went on.

“O-Okay,” Ruby choked out.

“So just… Promise me you’ll stay safe until then." There was a small pause there, Ruby still clinging onto Dia, and Dia holding onto her firmly in return. And then Ruby started to push herself back, just enough that she could look up at Dia, and Dia could look back down at her. There were still tears in Ruby’s eyes, rolling down her cheeks, but her expression had hardened now. She looked stern, confident, determined, and as she met her sister’s gaze she gave a firm nod, the sort that seemed entirely sure of itself, that didn’t leave any room for Dia to doubt her.

“I promise, I will,” she said.

“Thank you,” Dia replied, and then she pulled Ruby forward again to hug her just a little bit tighter.


	11. Memories

**11:48 pm, November 6th, 2024  
** **Musashino, Tokyo**

Kotori Minami let out a long sigh as hot water cascaded down from her head and shoulders, running down the rest of her body. She’d had a long day, and her muscles were still aching from the fight she’d been in earlier. A massive, gorilla-like Silence the size of a small house had been smashing its way through Tokyo, and it had taken all nine of them to bring it down. Nine people was a lot, and µ's often split up into smaller groups because of it. When all nine of them were needed to handle a situation, that was proof of how bad it was.

Kotori stayed in the shower for a while longer, soaking in the hot water and enjoying the steam around her, but eventually she decided it was time to finish up. She shut the water off and stepped out, drying herself off as best she could before wrapping a towel around her still-wet hair and slipping a nice, soft robe over her body. From there she opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the living room of her apartment, where someone was waiting for her.

“You certainly took your time in there.” Kotori nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Tsubasa Kira sitting on her couch, one leg crossed over the other, smug smile on her face.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Kotori said, fighting to get her heart rate back under control. “I didn’t even know you were coming by tonight.”

“That’s not a problem, is it? I brought food,” Tsubasa said, gesturing towards the plastic carryout bags sitting on the coffee table in front of her.

“Well in that case,” Kotori giggled, making her way over to the couch. As she reached it she leaned down to bring herself closer to Tsubasa, pecking her softly on the lips before settling down on the couch next to her girlfriend. “What brought you by anyway?” she asked, leaning forward to tear into the especially late dinner.

“Oh, nothing in particular,” Tsubasa replied, waving a hand casually. “Do I really need a reason to want to see you?”

“Showing up in my living room when it’s nearly midnight without telling me you would be here? I think you probably have one,” Kotori teased, and Tsubasa couldn’t help but laugh a bit in spite of herself.

“Alright, alright, you caught me,” she said. “I just… Needed to talk to someone for a bit, I guess. It’s been a long day.” Kotori was halfway through ripping into a box of fries at that point, though when Tsubasa said that she paused, looking over with a more sympathetic expression on her face.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Nothing beyond the usual,” Tsubasa promised. “Just stress, exhaustion, the same as always. That Big Bang Burger is two blocks from your apartment, and I went there at 11:30 pm on a Wednesday, and do you know how many times I got stopped for pictures along the way? _Nine_ ,” she said, holding up nine fingers to emphasize her point.

“I thought you liked your legions of adoring fans,” Kotori teased.

“I do, but good lord,” Tsubasa groaned back. “Sometimes I just want to be able to take a normal trip to the grocery store without being swarmed. Don’t you ever feel that way?”

“Not everyone is as famous as you, Tsubasa.”

“Don’t try to act like µ's is still some little group of ragtag up and comers,” Tsubasa chided. “You’re nearly as popular as A-RISE by this point.”

“ _Nearly_ as popular,” Kotori emphasized, flashing Tsubasa a wink before finally popping a fry into her mouth. Tsubasa rolled her eyes as Kotori chewed, leaning forward to grab some food out of the bags for herself.

“I shouldn’t even be eating this, you know,” she went on. “My managers will have my ass if they find out I’m cheating on my diet again. And they _will_ find out, given that I’m sure one of the dozen people who saw me there have already posted pictures online.”

“If they give you grief just threaten to fire them,” Kotori replied. “You have enough clout to throw around like that.”

“Were that it was that easy,” Tsubasa sighed. “Don’t you ever feel that way? Exhausted it by it all? Don’t you ever catch yourself wondering what your life would have been like if you had just, I don’t know… become a veterinarian instead?”

“A veterinarian?” Kotori laughed.

“Or a banker, or a cook, or an engineer, I don’t know. Anything but this. Come on,” she insisted. “You have to have thought about it before. You have to have had a backup plan, for if this didn’t work out.” Kotori thought about that for a moment, pausing for a few seconds before she replied, and when she did speak again her tone was just a little less playful than it had been before.

“If I didn’t do this…” she said. “I think I would have wanted to have become a fashion designer.”

“A fashion designer, hmm?” Tsubasa repeated, raising an eyebrow and laughing softly. “Even your contingency plan is dreaming big. I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Tsubasa chuckled, shaking her head as she dismissed the thought. She went quiet after she said that, looking away from Kotori and staring out the window instead. Kotori never knew what Tsubasa was thinking- for as long as she’d known her, and for as close as they were, she still found the other woman downright impossible to read so much of the time. Kotori supposed that was something that came with spending as much time in the public eye as Tsubasa did. She had gotten quite good at putting up a front and masking her true emotions by now.

A few more long seconds passed, and Kotori didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She just sat there, staring at Tsubasa while Tsubasa stared out the window, waiting for her to speak again. Even then, however, when Tsubasa _did_ say something else, Kotori wasn’t prepared for it. Tsubasa looked back towards Kotori rather abruptly, expression perfectly blank, and then she said something unexpected.

“Let’s run away together.” Kotori didn’t know how to respond to that, and she didn’t know whether Tsubasa was joking- it _sounded_ like a joke, but Tsubasa’s expression was so blank it didn’t give any indication of it being one.

“What?” was all she ended up being able to say in response.

“Let’s run away together,” Tsubasa repeated. “You and me. We’ll leave this life behind and start something new. We can flee the country, find new careers. You can become a fashion designer, and I’ll become a veterinarian. I’ve always thought Paris would be a nice place to live.”

“Tsubasa…” Kotori said. She didn’t know whether or not she should be laughing at the moment, and so she chose to, albeit it softly. “You’re not really serious, are you?” Tsubasa stared back at Kotori for a moment after that, expression still remaining blank, before a tiny smile cracked at her lips.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head and looking back out the window. “I don’t suppose I am.”

* * *

**7:40 pm, November 9th, 2024  
** **Musashino, Tokyo** ****

Kotori sat on her couch, staring straight ahead, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, hot mug of tea clutched in her curled fingers. She had barely moved or spoken in hours; she was practically catatonic.

She wasn’t alone in her apartment. All of the other members of µ's were present, crowding a space that wasn’t quite big enough for them, but none of them knew what to say. It had been two days since A-RISE had disappeared. They had gone out on patrol, and then they had just… vanished, without a trace. Nobody had seen it happen. Their management didn’t know where they had gone. No civilians had witnessed it. And not even Kotori had heard word from Tsubasa, no matter how much she had stayed glued to her phone for the past two days.

Kotori had gone through many different stages of grief in that time. She’d gone through cheerful denial, keeping a smile on her face and insisting that this was probably nothing, that they would turn up fine in no time. She’d gone through panicked breakdowns, crying and calling Tsubasa’s phone a hundred times over while her mind spiraled into every worst-case scenario she could imagine. She’d gone through foolhardy determination, insisting that she was going to go out there and find Tsubasa herself, despite having no clue where to look for her. And now, after all of that, Kotori had just shut down. Barely moving. Barely speaking. Barely even registering that she was still alive.

“She’s going to turn up,” Eli promised, placing a hand against Kotori’s back, though even as she spoke those words she could feel how empty they were. Magical Girl work could be dangerous, they all knew that. It wasn’t rare for someone to be hurt in the line of duty, or even killed. But for someone to just disappear entirely, the way A-RISE had… Eli had never heard of something like that before.

“Yeah!” Honoka agreed, sitting on Kotori’s other side. “And we’re not gonna stop looking for her until she does! We’ll scour every inch of Tokyo, top to bottom, until we find her!” Neither of those promises seemed to reach Kotori, though. She just kept staring down into a mug of tea that she hadn’t taken a single sip from, eyes glassed over like she wasn’t even conscious. It was only when Nico appeared in front of her that Kotori reacted at all.

“Eat.” Kotori’s head lifted slightly at that word, and she found Nico standing over, wearing one of Kotori’s aprons, holding out one of Kotori’s plates, with a mound of rice and curry piled up on top of it. Kotori looked at Nico for a moment, and then her eyes moved down to the plate, before she slowly shook her head.

“I’m not hungry,” she murmured.

“Well I didn’t slave away in the kitchen making this for you to not touch it,” Nico replied. “Eat.” Kotori stayed as she was just a moment longer, still staring at the plate, before she finally gave in. She leaned forward slowly to set her mug down on the coffee table, then reached out to take the plate from Nico, mumbling out a half-hearted “Thank you” under her breath. Nico seemed content with that, at least, stepping back as Kotori picked up the fork and raised a small bite to her mouth.

“Honoka-chan is right, you know,” Umi said, sitting in one of the chairs a short distance away from the couch. Kotori didn’t offer much in the way of a reaction to that, but she glanced up to make eye contact, at least briefly, and that encouraged Umi to continue speaking. “Wherever she is,” Umi went on, “and whatever happened to her… We’re going to find her. None of us will rest until we do.”

“The night before she went missing…” Kotori said, and everyone in the room seemed shocked to see that she was suddenly speaking. “She was here. And she told me…” Kotori went on, mind replaying those last conversations she’d had with Tsubasa, over and over on an endless loop. “She told me that she wanted to run away. And I thought she was joking. But… You don’t think she would have left me behind, do you?” Kotori asked, looking up towards Umi with an expression that was so wide-eyed, so desperate for the answer she needed to hear, that for a moment it was disarming. Umi was caught off guard by it, floundering for a response for a few seconds before her expression turned more stern, and she shook her head.

“Of course not,” she replied. “Tsubasa-chan loves you far too much for that. She would never abandon you.”

“Alright…” Kotori replied. But even though it was the answer she had thought she wanted, she didn’t actually know if that made it better or worse.

* * *

**8:40 am, November 25th, 2024  
** **Minato, Tokyo**

“You’re sure about this?”

“I’m sure.” Kotori was standing in front of Eli in the middle of the training ground she and the rest of µ's tended to frequent, and the rest of µ's was lined up behind Eli as well. All of them were dressed in athletic wear, ready to kick off a day of training and practice- all of them except for Kotori, who was dressed in casual clothing, and who had just dropped a bombshell on the rest of the group.

“Kotori-chan!” Honoka piped up from behind Eli. “You don’t actually mean this! You just-” She was interrupted by Umi raising an arm in front of her, though, shaking her head at Honoka and then looking towards Kotori.

“If this is the choice you want to make then we all support you,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve already thought this through thoroughly.”

“I have,” Kotori replied. “And I just… Don’t think I can do this anymore. I’m sorry.” Kotori hadn’t gone on a single patrol or made a single public appearance as a Magical Girl since Tsubasa had gone missing. At first it was just supposed to be a short leave of absence in the immediate days following the incident. But it had been over two weeks now, and she still hadn’t shown any signs that she was ready to come back to work. In a way, then, the announcement she’d just made felt inevitable: she didn’t intend to come back to µ's at all. She was retiring from her career as a Magical Girl.

“You don’t need to apologize to us,” Eli insisted, stepping closer to Kotori, close enough to place an arm against her shoulder. “If you feel that this is the right choice for you then we’re all behind you, one hundred percent.” Kotori looked back at Eli as she said that, and for a moment Eli’s words seemed to reach her, a small (if not melancholic) smile appearing on her face. After just a moment, though, that smile was quick to fade, and Kotori turned her eyes down towards the ground.

“What does this mean for the rest of you, though…?” she asked, and the question gave Eli a moment of pause.

“Well,” she eventually said. “We all agreed from the very beginning that there couldn’t be a µ's without all nine of us.”

“What?” Kotori blurted out, suddenly looking up to meet Eli’s eyes again, her own eyes wide with a vague sense of panic now. “But you can’t just-”

“Relax,” Eli said, still just smiling back at Kotori. “It doesn’t mean it’s the end for us. We might not be µ's anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of our careers. We’ll figure out our next steps in due time.”

“Still…” Kotori tried to protest. “You shouldn’t have to break up just because of me.”

“There’s not a single one of us here who would want to stay together as µ's without you,” Eli replied.

“She’s right, you know,” Nico cut in. “You can’t have eight muses. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Plus shaking things up is exciting!” Rin added on. “We can make new groups! With new names! And new images! Say hello to Rin and the Pussycats!”

“I think you’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself there,” Nozomi chuckled. “She does have a point, though. People love anything that’s fresh and new and dramatic. Changing up our image could actually be more of a boost to our career than a hindrance.”

“And if it means I don’t have to work as closely with _her_ anymore,” Maki said, shooting a sideways glance towards Nico, “I’d say this is actually a good thing.”

“Fuck you!” Nico huffed.

“The point is,” Eli said, squeezing her hand against Kotori’s shoulder in a small, comforting gesture, “we’re going to land on our feet no matter what. So don’t worry about us. Take care of yourself first, and do what you need to do. We’ll figure everything else out along the way.” Kotori looked at Eli as she said that, and then she looked to either side of her, at all of her friends, at all of their smiling faces and their acts of encouragement. And then she closed her eyes, because she knew she was about to start crying if she didn’t, and she whispered a response that betrayed just how fragile her voice had become.

“Thank you.”

* * *

**12:05 pm, September 8th, 2025  
** **Shibuya, Tokyo**

“Is that the last box?”

“I think so.”

“Then… We’re actually done.” Eli almost found that hard to believe, given how much unpacking they’d had to do over the past few days. Their hard work had paid off though, and now, as she stood next to Nozomi, she was able to look around and fully appreciate their efforts: 909 Talent Agency’s office was officially ready for their grand opening.

Their space was hardly that impressive: a single small office that Eli shared with Nozomi, a wider area outside it with some desks for the others to sit or store their belongings, a schedule agreement to share the nearby training grounds with some of the other larger agencies in the area. It wasn’t much, but it had a plaque on the door, and they had a private bathroom they didn’t have to share with the other businesses in the building, so there was something to be said for that.

With the last of her belongings unpacked Eli broke down the cardboard box they’d come out of and stuffed it into the side of the room, before exiting out into the common area, with Nozomi tailing behind her. The common room was crowded at the moment, packed full with every former member of µ's, even Kotori coming by for the office warming celebrations. Several of them had already started to make their desks feel like home, decorating them with pictures or other little knick-knacks- Eli was honestly shocked by how much clutter Honoka had already managed to accumulate in such a short amount of time.

“I think that about does it,” Eli said, commanding the attention of the entire room as she spoke. “We’re all finished unpacking. As of tomorrow 909 Talent Agency will be open for business.” What, exactly, being open for business actually meant was still a bit up in the air, of course. As of right now 909 had six stars signed to their agency which, while normally an impressive number for a new agency, felt a little bit like cheating, given those six stars were all former members of µ's. After Kotori’s departure µ's had disbanded and shuffled around, and they had now organized themselves into different units than before: Nico, Rin, and Hanayo had formed the trio After School Navigators, while Honoka and Umi had formed a duet known as Mirror Image, and Maki had decided to focus on a solo career (though, that said, she still spent a good amount of her time working with the other two groups regardless). Eli, meanwhile, had decided to step back from her own career as a Magical Girl to focus on management instead, leading to the eventual founding of 909 in the first place, and Nozomi had decided to follow suit so that she could stay by Eli’s side and help her in founding and operating their new agency.

“Tomorrow we work,” Rin agreed, “but today, we party! Hit it, Honoka-chan!”

“Right!” Honoka agreed, digging down into one of the numerous boxes on and around her desk and rummaging around until she produced a large bottle of champagne.

“Where did that even-” Nico started to ask, though before she could finish the question Honoka was already popping the cap off in a celebratory manner.

“Cheers!” she shouted. And then, with a loud POP, the cork went shooting across the room- and directly towards Eli. It was flying right at her, and was on course to take out an eye, though Eli didn’t flinch, or even react in the slightest. When the cork was no more than a foot away from her face it suddenly burst into flames, and a small crumble of ashes fell harmlessly at Eli’s feet.

“Honoka," Eli said, from behind a terrifyingly polite smile. "Please don’t destroy this office before we’ve even properly moved in."

“Eheh, right,” Honoka laughed sheepishly. “Sorry.” Eli stared back at her a moment longer, though after just a second or two a more sincere smile cracked through, and she let out a soft laugh of her own.

“If you’ve already brought that bottle I suppose we might as well celebrate, though. I don’t suppose you thought to bring glasses as well?”

“I sure didn’t!” Honoka replied. Eli rolled her eyes as she stepped forward and reached a hand out to Honoka, and Honoka handed the bottle over to her. Tilting her head back and raising it up Eli took a swig directly from the bottle, then lowered it back down and looked around the room.

“Who else wants some?”

“Me, me! Rin’s ready to get turnt!” Eli handed the bottle to Rin next, declining to point out that a single bottle of champagne shared between all of them probably wasn’t enough to get anybody “turnt,” and while Rin started to take a chug long enough to earn her protests from Nico and Umi, Eli turned her eyes around the room towards everyone else. Spirits were high at the moment, and everyone seemed to be excited and in a good mood- everyone except Kotori, who was sitting quietly off to the side by herself. She hadn’t been talking, and while she was watching everyone else and smiling, it didn’t seem to be a genuine smile. Eli wanted to think she knew Kotori well enough by now to tell that difference. While Umi set about trying to pry the bottle of champagne away from Rin, Eli walked over closer to Kotori.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, and Kotori looked startled when she realized Eli was singling her out.

“Huh?” she asked, blinking up at Eli for a moment, before forcing her smile a little bit wider. “Yeah. I’m okay,” she promised.

“Are you sure?” Eli asked. “I know this is probably all a little strange for you, so-”

“It’s not that,” Kotori interrupted, shaking her head. “It’s… I actually have something I need to tell everyone. I’ve been putting it off, but…” Kotori pushed herself up from where she had been sitting on the edge of a desk at that point, and Eli raised an eyebrow as Kotori took a deep breath, before addressing the room. “Hey, everyone?” she said. “I have an announcement to make.”

“Eh? What’s up, Kotori-chan?” Honoka asked, now looking towards Kotori alongside everyone else in the room. Kotori took another breath before she continued speaking, and Eli could tell that whatever this was, it seemed to be nerve-wracking for her.

“You all know I’ve been working on a fashion career recently…” Kotori began. “And things have been going well. And I actually got a new job offer recently. And…” Kotori trailed off for a moment there, swallowing once and shutting her eyes before she finally got to the crux of her announcement. “And it’s in Paris. I’m leaving Japan at the end of this month.”

A prolonged, stunned silence hung in the air after Kotori said that. It was clear nobody quite knew how to react, and for a few long seconds they all just stood there, still and quiet, staring back at Kotori as she stood in front of them. In the end, as was so often the case, it was Honoka who broke the silence.

“Holy shit!” she blurted out. “That’s awesome! What kinda job is it? Are they paying you a lot? France is where crepes come from, right? Does that mean you’re gonna get to eat them every single day?” As Honoka rattled off every question and half-formed thought that came into her head Kotori opened her eyes again, and for a few seconds she was stunned. She just stared at Honoka, wide-eyed, until very slowly, a smile started to tug at her lips.

“It’s a design job,” she replied. “I’ll be starting off at the bottom, but hopefully I’ll be able to work my way up quickly once I’m there. And… I think if I ate crepes every single day I would get sick of them,” she giggled.

“Impossible!” Honoka insisted. “You can never get sick of them!”

“Regardless,” Umi added on, “we’re all very happy for you. This sounds like a huge opportunity.”

“Hopefully it will be,” Kotori agreed. “And… I’ll be sure to keep in touch with all of you. And I’ll come back and visit Tokyo as often as I can!”

“You’ll still make it back for our wedding as well, right?” Nozomi asked, tone half-teasing.

“Of course!” Kotori replied. “I would never miss it!”

“And we’ll come visit you in France too!” Honoka said. “I’ve always wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Paris!”

“That’s not-” Umi started to sigh, before realizing it was a losing battle. “Maybe we should go get another bottle of champagne,” she mentioned, looking towards the bottle she hadn’t been able to rescue from Rin, which was almost entirely empty now. “It suddenly seems like we have two reasons to celebrate.”

“Rin can get one!” Rin volunteered.

“I’ll- I’ll come with you,” Hanayo added on. “You already drank a lot.”

“Spring for the good shit,” Nico insisted. “Don’t bring back any of that cheap crap.”

“As if you could tell the difference,” Maki muttered.

“I totally could! I have refined tastes!” Kotori just stood there as she watched her friends shout and bicker and cause chaos, but she still had a smile on her face, and she was happy and even relieved by the reaction she’d gotten. She’d been prepared for the worst: for the others to tell her this was a mistake, that she was being impulsive, that she didn’t _actually_ want to leave Tokyo, or that she was being selfish by running off and leaving them all behind. She’d been prepared for them to guilt her, even, to talk about how much they would miss her and try to pressure her into staying. Looking back on it now, she realized, it was foolish to have ever thought that way in the first place. Her friends were good people, and they cared about her. They wanted what was best for her, and they would never treat her that way. The thought was so laughable that Kotori had to wonder where it had come from in the first place. And maybe, she started to realize, deep down, she hadn’t been _worried_ they would react that way so much as she had been _hoping_ they would. After all, if she could find a reason to hate them, leaving all her friends behind in three weeks’ time would be a whole lot easier.

* * *

**10:20 am, May 10th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

Kotori stood outside the door to the 909 conference room. On the other side she could hear voices talking back and forth, speaking in short, blunt sentences, the conversation carrying a quick cadence, even if Kotori couldn’t make out the specifics. Eli was in there, along with Nozomi, Dia, and Mari, operating the makeshift command center they had to set up to coordinate all of the other agencies across Tokyo. There must have been a dozen different computers set up when Kotori had seen inside earlier, each of their displays showing something different. It had looked overwhelming, honestly, and Kotori didn’t know how they made sense of it.

As Kotori stood in the hallway she clenched her fists tightly, staring down at the doorknob in front of her. She felt nervous, mouth dry and throat tight, and she had been standing in that exact spot for longer than she cared to admit. Closing her eyes and taking one more deep breath she forced her hand the rest of the way to the doorknob, then pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

As Kotori opened her eyes again she saw Eli sitting around the large conference table at the center of the room, along with the three others. They were clearly mid-conversation, and all looked a little startled by the interruption. Eli was wearing a headset, but she pulled it down now so she could talk to Kotori instead.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “I didn’t even realize you were here right now. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Kotori replied. “I just…” She paused for a moment there, then took a deep breath, before speaking again. “Could I talk to you outside?”


	12. Comeback

**10:18 am, May 10th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (14th floor conference room), Minato, Tokyo**

“I’m getting reports of another rift opening in Shinagawa,” Dia said.

“One in Toshima as well,” Mari added on.

“Lemniscate has already deployed A-Set to the Toshima attack,” Eli replied, not lifting her eyes from the three computer screens in front of her as she spoke. “Nozomi, have Fortuna send Kiria to Shinagawa.”

“Understood,” Nozomi said, pivoting her chair and picking up one of the several phones around her to make the call.

“What about Sayaka Maizono and Off the Hook?” Eli went on. “Have either of them finished with their current calls yet?”

“Off the Hook radioed in a moment ago, I’ve already sent them up to south Sumida,” Mari answered. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from Maizono-san.”

“Excellent. Keep me updated.”

It had been roughly three hours since 909, along with the assistance of Ohara Incorporated, had gotten their command center up and running, and they hadn’t had a single moment to breathe since then. It was a testament to Eli’s business acumen and managerial prowess, Dia felt, that Eli had actually managed to get nearly every other agency in the entirety of Tokyo to agree to this, and she had now managed to establish lines of communication and a comprehensive tracking map to bring nearly the full force of the city’s agencies and Magical Girls into a single organized fold. Dia would have been marveling, if she’d had even a second to do so.

They were gathered in one of 909’s conference rooms with a dozen different computers set up around them, each monitor displaying different bits of vital information, showing where attacks were occurring, where the various Magical Girl teams were, even noting how long each of them had been out there so they could be sure nobody was getting overworked. Admittedly many of the groups were already being left out there for longer than they would have been under normal circumstances, but at the moment such a thing felt unavoidable.

All that said, the coordinated efforts were certainly helping. They were still left scrambling to put out every fire as it came up, but it was a far more elegant solution than what they had all been dealing with beforehand. They were able to respond to any individual attack more quickly and efficiently, and they didn’t have to worry about different groups getting in each other’s ways like they had before. As long as the attacks kept coming it was all they could do to respond to them as fast as they could, and so far, this seemed to be helping.

“Nazuna Hiwatashi just finished up in Setagaya,” Dia said, watching the ping pop up on one of her computer screens. “Where should I-” Mid-sentence, though, she was interrupted by the door to the conference room opening unexpectedly. She looked towards the door, as did all of the others, and they were all surprised to see Kotori entering.

Kotori looked nervous- Dia didn’t know her very well, but she could at least pick up on that much. Her whole posture was tense, and her face was scrunched up into an anxious expression. Eli looked more surprised to see her there than anyone else in the room, and after a moment she pulled off the headset she had been wearing and addressed her.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “I didn’t even realize you were here right now. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Kotori replied. “I just… Could I talk to you outside?” That question seemed to give Eli a moment of pause, and even Dia had to admit that she was suddenly curious, paying a bit more attention to the conversation playing out than she should have, and not nearly as much attention to any of her computer screens. After a few seconds Eli nodded, setting her headset down and standing up from her chair.

“Could you take over for a minute, Nozomi?” she asked.

“Of course,” Nozomi replied, already rolling her chair over towards Eli’s computers.

“Thank you.” Eli pushed her own chair in, then walked over towards Kotori, before gesturing past her, into the hallway. “Shall we?”

* * *

**10:23 am, May 10th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency (14th floor hallway), Minato, Tokyo**

Eli couldn’t help but be a little worried as she followed Kotori down the hall, away from the conference room. Kotori had said she was alright, sure, but that didn’t actually mean it was true. It was clear just from taking one look at her that Kotori was high-strung at the moment, somehow even more stressed out and anxious than she had been since the attacks had started. It was obvious how much this was all weighing on her, and the longer it dragged on, the worse it seemed to get. Even if she was trying to pretend she was okay, Eli knew her too well by now to be fooled by that.

Kotori kept walking until they were a good distance away from the conference room, reaching a spot where the hallway wrapped around a corner. At that point she stopped, looking up and down the hall in both directions, presumably to ensure they were alone, before she finally looked towards Eli.

“What was it you wanted to talk about?” Eli asked. Even then, Kotori still took a moment before she answered. Eli could see her hands balling up at her sides, and Kotori was avoiding looking at her directly. Clearly, whatever she wanted to say was a big deal to her. And the moment she spoke, Eli could see why.

“I’ve been thinking it over since all of this started,” Kotori began. “And with everything that’s happening, with all of the attacks taking place… I want to help.”

“Help?” Eli repeated, though she had a feeling she already knew precisely what Kotori meant by that. “Help how?”

“I want to fight,” Kotori answered. She finally lifted her head to look Eli straight in the eyes as she said that, and Eli could see the look of determination that was burning there. All of Kotori’s other nervous uncertainties still appeared present as well, but behind all of that, Eli could see her resolve. It was startling, actually; Kotori was one of Eli’s closest friends, and Eli thought the world of her and cared for her very deeply, but “resolve” wasn’t a word she typically would have associated with her. Kotori had always been such a passive voice in their group, content to be a member of the supporting cast, content to follow along wherever Honoka might have lead. Even after she had left µ's and moved to Paris it had still always felt, at least from an outside perspective, like Kotori was hardly making those choices for herself, like she was simply being blown along to wherever her life and the world saw fit to take her. To see this level of determination burning away inside her, then, it was surprising, and it already told Eli how pointless it was going to be to argue. But that wasn’t going to stop her from trying, at least a little bit.

“Are you sure about this?” Eli asked. “It’s been five years. Surely, you’ll be out of practice after all this time.”

“I fought against them once and I came out alive,” Kotori replied. A part of Eli wanted to point out that Kotori had only survived that encounter because Honoka and Umi had rescued her, though even then, the fact that she had managed to stand her ground against A-RISE for even a fraction of a second said something. They had always been the best of the best, and assuming they hadn’t grown rusty during the time they had been gone either, that was proof enough that Kotori still had some of her skills about her. But Eli still couldn’t shake the vague sense of nervousness this whole idea filled her with.

“I’m still not sure it’s a good idea,” she tried to insist. “Sending you out when you haven’t had any proper training or practice in this long… It feels like a recipe for disaster.”

“I’m only telling you this because I thought it would help,” Kotori replied, speaking with a bluntness that startled Eli. “I thought I would be more useful if I coordinated with you. But I don’t work for 909. I don’t actually need your permission to go out there.” Eli wanted to argue with that, but she knew Kotori had a point: Kotori was her own person, and Eli had no grounds to be telling her not to fight. Another moment passed, and then Eli let out a sigh, before getting to the core of what was really bothering her.

“I just… Want to make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons,” she said. “If you want to help that’s all well and good, but… I know how much she meant to you. And now that she’s back, under circumstances like these, I can’t imagine what you must be going through. But I want to make sure you’re not letting that anger or that desperation or whatever else you might be feeling cloud your judgment. I don’t want you getting injured or worse because you let your emotions get the better of you. Right now, more than ever, we need people who can be calm and rational and level headed, and when you’re so close to this situation-”

“I can be all of those things,” Kotori insisted. “It’s been five years since I lost Tsubasa. That’s given me a lot of time to build myself back up. But if there’s even a little chance that I have a way to bring her back… I can’t sit here and do nothing,” she said. “I can’t be useless on the sidelines while everyone else fights and risks their lives. I’m going to be a part of this, one way or another. And… I’m going to bring Tsubasa back. No matter what it takes.”

“I doubt there’s anything I can say to change your mind at this point,” Eli replied, though there were still the parts of her mind that wished she _could_. She still wasn’t convinced that sending Kotori out was a good idea, for all of the reasons she had listed. But if Kotori was going to be going out regardless, which she’d made clear she intended to, Eli could at least recognize that it was better for her not to be going out solo and acting on her own. “If you give me a few minutes to consult with our maps I can figure out the best plan to send you. I’m not letting you go out there alone, though,” she added on, trying to bring a sternness to her voice that would let Kotori know that this detail, at least, wasn’t up for debate. “I’ll let Honoka-chan and Umi-chan know that you’re coming and tell them to meet up with you.”

“Okay,” Kotori agreed, and Eli was glad to see she wasn’t getting pushback on that part. “Then, if there’s nothing else… I should start getting ready.”

“I suppose you should,” Eli agreed, though even then there was a small pause, and neither of them were moving to leave just yet. They both stayed as they were, and another few seconds passed, before Eli found herself breaking her eyes away, one thought still lurking in the back of her mind. “And… Kotori? Before you go out there, there’s one other thing I feel I should say.”

“Huh?” Kotori asked, brows creasing down. “What is it?”

“I know you want to bring Tsubasa-chan back,” Eli said. “And I’ll do everything in my power to help you do that. But right now… As far as we can tell, there’s a connection between her and everything else that’s happening. I don’t know how she and the rest of A-RISE have ended up this way, or why. But at the moment they’re quite possibly the single greatest threat to Tokyo, even greater than any of the Silence they’ve sent to fight in their absence. So if you’re going to go out there and fight, you need to be prepared for the fact there’s a chance you won’t be able to-”

“I’ll save her,” Kotori interrupted, eyebrows arching further this point, the look of mild confusion she’d been wearing a moment ago now turning back to one of determination. “I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to find a way.”

“I know you want to believe that,” Eli said. “I want to as well. But we still barely know what’s going on to begin with, and we have no way of knowing what’s going to happen. I sincerely hope that it won’t come to this. But if it turns into a life or death scenario, if we’re presented with no other option… You need to be prepared to kill her.”

“It won’t come to that,” Kotori insisted.

“You can’t know that.”

“I do.” Kotori’s expression remained stalwart as she said that, and she looked so certain and so determined that Eli felt compelled to believe her, even if she knew there was no logical reason to do so. Eli _wanted_ to believe her, more than anything in the world. But blind optimism wasn’t a strategy that got people very far in this line of work.

“I need you to promise me,” Eli said, “that if the situation comes to it you’ll be ready to kill her, or you’ll step down for someone who is. I can’t let you go out there otherwise.” Kotori kept staring back at Eli as Eli said that, and she wasn’t flinching, but Eli wasn’t either. A few long seconds passed between them during which neither of them spoke, eyes locked onto each other, neither of them yielding. In the end, though, it was Kotori who broke first.

“Fine,” she mumbled, pulling her eyes away and looking off to the side. “I promise.”

“Thank you,” Eli said. “Now, let’s go get you your orders.”

* * *

**11:05 am, May 10th, 2030  
** **Adachi, Tokyo**

Kanan ran across the rooftops of her familiar stomping ground, vaulting between them with ease as she chased down the manta-like monster soaring through the air a short distance away. It was fast, but its path was loose and meandering, and that gave her time to close the distance on it. Each step brought her a little bit closer to the beast until finally, as she reached the edge of yet another building and hurled herself over the ledge, she was in range to strike.

“You fuckers are turning into a real pain in my ass!” she shouted, hurling herself through the air and driving her spear down into the smooth, flat surface of the monster’s back. The Silence screeched out as Kanan’s weapon pierced through its hide, its balance through the air suddenly thrown off, causing it to swerve vertically and fly higher into the air. Kanan held tight to the handle of her spear as gravity started to pull her down, dragging her weapon down along the length of the Silence’s back and leaving an enormous gash in its wake. As her spear reached the monster’s tail it finally ripped loose entirely, and Kanan was sent tumbling down towards the rooftops below. She tucked in as she braced for impact, rolling the moment she hit the top of the building and managing to make her crash-landing with nothing more than a bit of a jarring shock to her bones. Looking skyward she could see the Silence plummeting down towards the rooftops as well, thoroughly subdued by the wound to its back. It dropped like a stone, crashing onto one of the buildings a short distance away, before its body started to dissipate.

“Bitch,” Kanan muttered under her breath, reaching up to rub at her shoulder where it had hit the roof. Looking up towards the sky, however, she realized her work was still far from over: no sooner had she killed one Silence than another rift was appearing, and yet another monster was emerging over Tokyo.

“Dia,” Kanan said, reaching up to press a finger to her earpiece again. “I just killed one in Adachi and another one’s already showing its ugly head. I’m going after it.”

“Understood,” Dia’s voice came back. “I’ll mark it off.”

“God dammit,” Kanan muttered, pulling her hand away from her ear and speaking to herself again now. “You bastards just won’t quit, will you?”

* * *

**???, ???, ????  
** **World of the Silence**

“Impressive, aren’t they?” Erena asked, eyes glued to the rift lingering in the air in front of her. Each time another monster left their world and a rift opened they were given brief glimpses into Tokyo, letting them monitor the situation as it continued to unfold. They had been watching carefully at every chance they got, and truly, those fighting on the other side deserved commendation for how well they had been handling the attacks. Irritating as it may have been.

“Impressive enough, I suppose, though up until now they’ve really just been stomping on ants. It’s hardly worthy of praise.” Tsubasa waved a hand carelessly through the air as she spoke, walking past Erena, and towards the giant mountain that loomed over them.

“Up until now?” Anju asked, bouncing along beside Tsubasa, giggling as she spoke. “Does that mean…?”

“I think it’s about time,” Tsubasa replied. “Don’t you?” She came to the mouth of the cave burrowing into the mountain, Erena and Anju standing at her sides, and then Tsubasa raised an arm in front of her, calling out into the darkness. “Yoohoo!” she shouted, voice reverberating off the walls of the cave, echoing down into the blackness. “Are you awake in there? It’s time to come out and play!” A moment passed in silence, and then a thundering, earth-shaking roar billowed out from deep within the cave, followed up by the sound of heavy footsteps, one after another, each one rumbling the entire mountain above them. They came closer and closer until, eventually, a singular, massive, clawed foot emerged from the shadows, nearly as tall as Tsubasa in her entirety, crashing down onto the ground in front of her. Despite that Tsubasa didn’t flinch, and her smile only grew wider as she reached her hand out further, placing it against the monster’s leg.

“That’s a good girl,” she cooed, running her hand along the creature's skin like it were nothing more than a domestic pet. “Are you ready to have some fun?”


	13. Eleventh Hour

**12:10 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Shinjuku, Tokyo**

Things weren’t going great for Chika. Three Mermaids had been out responding to calls since 8 o’clock that morning, and four straight hours of nonstop fighting and running back and forth across the city had started to take its toll on them. That was probably how she had gotten herself into the situation she was in at the moment.

They had responded to a call near the center of Shinjuku, dropping in to fight a massive, serpentine Silence that was close to twenty feet long, weaving and floating through the air like an eel through water, smashing against buildings and attacking civilians with its razor-sharp jaw. And now, the entirety of that twenty-foot body was coiled around Chika, constricting her and lifting her higher up into the air.

“Chika!” You shouted from down below, flying up towards Chika as fast as she could. “We’re gonna get you out of there!”

“I’m okay! Stay back!” Chika called out in response. The monster’s body was wound tightly around her, restraining her movement and keeping her arms pinned to her sides, threatening to snap her like a twig underneath the force. Chika could feel it growing tighter with each passing moment as well, and she knew she didn’t have much time before it ended up crushing her. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to focus and calm herself, and then she put every ounce of strength she had into trying to break free.

Lightning started to pour from Chika’s body, arcing off every patch of exposed skin and crackling against the coils of the Silence’s body. It was so bright that even with her eyes shut Chika could see the blinding flash, and it was powerful enough that her own skin started to tingle and numb from the shock, but she needed to make sure it was going to be enough. In that regard, at least, it seemed she had succeeded: as hundreds of volts of electricity shot out into the monster’s body the Silence reeled, roaring out in pain while rapidly uncoiling its body to flail away from Chika. The moment she was released Chika dropped through the air like a stone, opening her eyes back up to see the ground approaching her very quickly. Well before she hit it, though, a portal opened up between her and the pavement, and then she found herself tumbling out horizontally onto the ground, just a few feet from where Riko was standing.

“You alright?” Riko asked.

“My arms are still tingly,” Chika groaned, scrambling to push herself back into a standing position. “But yeah. I’m okay.”

“Good,” Riko said, before turning her eyes skyward again, watching as the Silence coiled through the air in an attempt to regroup and come back in for another pass. “You-chan!” she called out, waving a hand to collapse the portal she had opened to catch Chika, and then opening another one up a short distance from You. “Can you lure it in?”

“Why do I always have to be the bait?” You groaned. Despite her protests, though, she had already turned her attention towards the monster, watching as it circled around and then began to lunge down through the air again. “Over here, you overgrown garter snake!” she shouted, swinging her arms forward and launching several jets of water through the air towards the monster. The jets crashed against the creature’s body and, while they didn’t seem to do any actual damage, they at least got its attention. That was all You wanted.

The Silence pivoted in the air and started to rush towards You, and You was very quick to fly backwards, continuing to fire off bolt after bolt of water to keep the beast’s attention all the way. “Yeah, that’s right!” she shouted. “You like that, huh? You mess with You Watanabe, you get mildly damp!” As You approached the portal Riko had opened she could feel it behind her even without seeing it, the familiar buzz of energy where space was warped tingling across her skin, and then suddenly she passed through it, and her surroundings changed. She was at the other end of the street now, closer to the ground, though still a few feet above it. Looking through the portal she could see the Silence was still chasing her as well, passing through the portal after her, and so she kept flying away, now focused solely on putting distance between them.

From where she was standing Riko had been watching all of this unfold very carefully, waiting for the exact moment that You was through the portal and the Silence was following. She waited until You was clear and then, with the Silence’s long body halfway on one side of the portal and halfway on the other, she raised her arms into the air and swung them down sharply.

“Dimensional Guillotine!” she shouted. At Riko’s command both portals closed in unison, and as they did the Silence’s form was sliced cleanly in half. The upper half, still chasing You, suddenly went limp and crashed to the street below, while the lower half plummeted from high up in the air, twitching and writhing on its way to the ground. Both halves began to dissipate the moment they were severed, and the tail had disintegrated entirely before it even hit the street.

“That’s a pretty nifty new trick,” You said, casually floating over beside Riko now that she no longer had a monster pursuing her. “Seems like it’ll come in handy a lot.”

“I’m just thankful it worked,” Riko replied. She had been practicing the technique for a while now, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing she could try out on a living target, for obvious reasons. For the most part she had been left to tossing empty bottles and cans through her portals, and trying to get the timing down to slice those in half. Compared to an eight-inch tall bottle a twenty-foot long Silence was actually much easier to manage, but it was still the first time Riko had tried it out on a living creature- or at least, as living as Silence actually were. Either way, it was a relief to see it had gone off without a hitch.

“How’re you doing, Chika-chan?” You asked, finally dropping down to the ground next to her friend. “You good to keep fighting?”

“Yeah. I’m probably gonna bruise a little bit from all that,” Chika huffed, “but I’m fine. You should call this in to Dia-san!”

“Yeah, alright,” You agreed. “I’ll let her know we’re done here.”

“Um… You-chan? Before you do that…” You glanced over her shoulder at the sound of Riko’s voice, eyebrow quirked, and in doing so she saw Riko staring up towards the sky, finger raised, pointing up towards whatever had caught her attention. You followed it, and as soon as she saw what Riko was pointing towards, her blood ran cold.

“You fucking serious?” she muttered. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse…”

Up in the sky more rifts were opening- that alone wasn’t a strange sight anymore, and it was one You had gotten far too used to over the past few days. These rifts, however, were _massive_. It was hard to get a good sense of scale from the distance they were at, but there were five of them, opening in unison across the skyline, and You estimated each one must have been at least fifty feet tall. And the monsters emerging from them matched.

In near-perfect sync Silence started to come from inside the rifts, deep black bodies contrasting the perfectly clear blue sky behind them. Heads came out first, lizard-like and adorned with fangs and horns, albeit no eyes, and then those heads gave way to long, spine-laden necks, eventually tapering out into enormous quadrupedal bodies with winding tails and broad, heavy wings. Five pitch-black dragons had entered into Tokyo at once, each of them teetering on the edge of the rifts that separated the human world from their own. And then, still in complete coordination with one another, they raised their heads to the sky and let out a chorus of roars so powerful You had to cover her ears from all the way down on the ground, before their wings unfolded and the dragons took flight in five different directions.

“Riko,” You blurted out, pulling her hands away from her ears and hastily looking towards her teammate, only to find Riko standing there with a look of utter shock on her face, hand already reached up to press against her earpiece.

“Dia-san?” she was saying. “We have a problem.”

* * *

**12:13 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

“Elichi, take a look at this.” Eli was still focused on the myriad screens in front of her, as she had been so constantly for the past several hours, but now Nozomi was rolling her chair over towards her wife, holding her tablet out for Eli to see. Eli pulled her eyes away from her own computers to look at it, and although she had only intended to glance for a brief moment, her eyes froze on the display the instant she saw what it was showing. She stared at it for a few seconds, then quickly looked back up to Nozomi, who was wearing a solemn expression on her face.

“What the hell is that?”

“Massive energy spikes coming from over Chiyoda,” Nozomi replied. “I’m still waiting on reports to hear what’s actually happening there.”

“Is everything alright?” Dia’s voice cut in, though as Eli glanced across the table she realized Dia wasn’t speaking to her. Dia was holding a finger to her own earpiece, brows furrowed down in consternation, clearly listening intently to whoever was speaking to her on the other end. Eli had to assume it was related. “You’re sure about that? How many? Could you see where they were moving towards? ...Understood. We’ll dispatch as many people as we can right away.”

“What was that about?” Eli asked the moment Dia pulled her hand away from her ear.

“I just got a report from Three Mermaids,” Dia answered. “They said five enormous Silence just emerged over Chiyoda and split off in different directions. I’m trying to get better location data on where they’re headed now.”

“That explains that,” Nozomi murmured, eyes moving back down to her tablet screen, and towards the readings that still displayed a sudden, massive outpouring of energy.

“I suppose it does,” Eli muttered under her breath, before clenching her fist tightly and pounding it on the arm of her chair. “Dammit! We’re already spread thin enough as is, and things are just getting worse? What the hell are we supposed to do about this?”

“We still have a few teams that aren’t assigned anywhere at the moment. I can radio them and-”

“Look at the size of those readings, Nozomi,” Eli interrupted, shaking her head. “They’re massive. Unlike anything we’ve seen before. We can’t just send a solo out there to clean up the way we’ve been able to with some of the smaller threats. They would get slaughtered.” Eli clenched her fist tighter in frustration as she said that, though after a moment she looked across the table to see Dia and Mari looking back at her, and she felt an immediate pang of shame for her outburst. Closing her eyes she forced herself to exhale deeply, then inhale, before opening her eyes and speaking again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to lose my composure.”

“It’s quite alright,” Mari replied from across the table. “Frankly, I’m surprised you’ve managed to hold it together this long. Not that I had low expectations of you, of course,” she added, quickly heading off any offense Eli might have taken at those words. “With the way things have been going lately, though, and with how hard you’ve been working… Weaker women would have crumbled days ago. But here you are, still plugging along like it’s just another normal day in the office.”

“She’s right, you know,” Nozomi agreed, reaching up to place a hand at Eli’s shoulder. “Not just anyone could keep a level head during a situation like this one. Your leadership skills are something this entire city needs right now. Which is why…” she went on, standing up from her chair and slipping her headset off to drop it on the table. “You should stay put here. I’ll go out and take care of this.”

“You’re going out to fight?” Eli asked, blinking up at Nozomi in momentary disbelief.

“I’d thought I would be more useful here, helping to coordinate and lighten your workload,” Nozomi replied. “But if things are getting as bad as they are out there… I think it’s about time to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty myself.”

“You know I don’t approve of this,” Eli sighed.

“I’ve spent half my time around this place practicing and training with our stars anyway,” Nozomi replied, flashing Eli a playful wink that didn’t at all match the gravity of the situation. “You know I’ve probably kept myself in better shape than you have.”

“Still…”

“You know I can take care of myself, dear,” Nozomi insisted. “And right now this city needs all the help it can get. I’m going to go get myself ready,” she said, not leaving any wiggle room for Eli to argue with her about that. “Figure out where you need me and let me know where to go, alright? And don’t even think about sending me after a bunch of small fries to try to keep me out of danger,” she added on, raising a finger up to preempt any thoughts Eli might have had on that matter.

“Fine,” Eli reluctantly agreed, realizing arguing this further would be a lost cause. “Just promise me you’ll be safe out there, alright?”

“I promise,” Nozomi replied, before leaning down to bring herself closer to Eli, touching her fingers underneath Eli’s chin. She tilted Eli’s head up, and then leaned the rest of the way forward to brush their lips against each other. It was an entirely chaste kiss that only lasted half a second, though even then Eli’s cheeks flushed when she remembered they still had professional acquaintances in the room with them. Not that Dia and Mari seemed to care, but Eli still couldn’t let it go entirely.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Nozomi said, and with one last smile she made her way out of the room, leaving Eli to sigh as she watched her go. Eli still didn’t enjoy the thought of Nozomi going out there to fight under circumstances like these, but she couldn’t argue that Nozomi’s strength would be a tremendous benefit either. And given how chaotic everything had quickly become, they really did need any bit of help they could get.

“How are the maps looking?” Eli asked, looking back down the table at Mari and Dia, trying to throw herself back into her work as quickly as possible so she wouldn’t be able to dwell on her worries for any longer.

“Eyewitness reports of the Silence Three Mermaids mentioned are flooding in already,” Dia replied. “I’m trying to track their paths and add them to the map now.”

“It really does look like they’re spreading out and trying to get as far away from each other as possible,” Mari added on. “Almost like…”

“Almost like they know what they’re doing,” Eli finished. She’d already been having that thought herself: this obviously wasn’t random. She didn’t know what sort of connection A-RISE had to these attacks, or how much they were in control, but this latest incident was starting to make her think they were doing more than she’d initially suspected. Having five enormous Silence in one area would be a daunting threat, certainly, but at least it would be a _contained_ threat. Collapse all their resources on that single location and they would be able to deal with it with minimal damage. When those Silence were spreading out, though? Covering as much of the city as they possibly could? They became capable of inflicting that much more chaos, and they became that much more difficult to properly respond to.

“What should we do about it, then?” Dia asked, and Eli quickly realized that it wasn’t just an open-ended, rhetorical question. Dia was looking right at her across the table, and from the look on her face, it was obvious she was hoping Eli had an answer. This was the price of positioning herself as a leader: sometimes, Eli had to lead.

“We make these attacks a priority, and we allocate our best teams,” Eli replied, hoping as she said it that it was the right answer. “Three Mermaids, Saint Snow, all of µ's’ former members. How many of them are free right now?”

“After School Navigators, Mirror Image, and Three Mermaids are all available at the moment,” Dia said. “Should I send them those orders?”

“Do it,” Eli replied. “Send each of them towards whichever attack is closest.”

“Understood.” Dia leaned in further towards her screen after saying that, beginning to contact the respective groups. As Eli looked down at her own screen she still had one thought on her mind, however, and it was a thought that Mari vocalized just a moment later.

“Are you sure this is enough?”

“It’s going to have to be,” Eli replied, but she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t concerned about it as well.

“Saint Snow, Three Mermaids,” Mari started to say, and Eli looked across the table to see Mari raising a finger with each group she named. “Mirror Image, After School Navigators, and Nishikino-san. Five groups to respond to five attacks- but I’m using the word ‘group’ liberally here. You said yourself a solo agent won’t be able to take down one of these monsters all on their own, didn’t you?”

“We have Matsuura-san as well,” Eli reminded Mari. “From what I’ve seen of her, she’s effectively a unit on her own.”

“My point stands,” Mari remained. “You and I both know there’s not a person alive on Earth who could go toe to toe with one of these monsters one on one. I know what Kanan’s capable of quite well, and I still wouldn’t encourage her to pick that fight. With what you’re listing, we just don’t have the manpower at the moment.”

“Then what are you suggesting?” Eli asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

“Quite simply?” Mari replied, already starting to rise from her seat. “I think it’s time I head out there as well.” The moment Mari said that Dia whipped her head to the side, eyes going wide, concentration completely breaking from whatever she had been focused on a moment before.

“You’re _what_??” she demanded. Mari didn’t flinch at the reaction, and Eli had to assume she had anticipated it.

“This is clearly turning into an all hands on deck situation,” Mari replied. “I have hands. It’s about time I put them to use.”

“Absolutely not,” Dia insisted. “You’re in no condition to be fighting at all, let alone fighting a threat like _this_. If you go out right now you’ll just end up dead, and-”

“If that’s the case, so be it.” As soon as Mari said that Dia froze, and Mari finally turned to look down at her. She was smiling, but Eli could see that smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ve had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking over the past two years, Dia,” she continued. “I’ve thought about the day of my injury over and over, and do you know the conclusion I’ve come to?” Dia didn’t answer, and so Mari continued. “I’ve realized I should have died,” she said. “I don’t know what miracle or higher power intervened to make sure I came away from that day alive, but ever since then, I’ve always felt like I’m living on borrowed time. Like I’ve already been given a second chance that I never really earned. And knowing all that, feeling that way… I’m not afraid to die,” she concluded. “If I’m supposed to die today, so be it. I’d rather have that than live the rest of my life knowing I could have done something, helped someone, _saved_ someone, and I didn’t. I have to go out there.”

“You can’t,” Dia insisted, slamming her hands down on the table, bolting up from her chair abruptly. “You expect me to be okay with this? You expect me to just let you march out to your death?”

“This is what I want,” Mari insisted.

“I don’t give a shit what you want!” Dia snapped back. “Think about someone other than yourself for once! Think about me! Think about Kanan! What the hell are we supposed to do once you’re gone? She already hates me enough as is! How do you think she would react if I told her I let you get yourself killed because it’s what you _wanted_?”

“Dia,” Mari said, reaching a hand out to delicately cup her friend’s cheek. Dia tensed at the touch, but Mari was still smiling. “What do you think you can do to stop me? If I turn around and walk out this door right now, what are you going to do about it? Do you plan to subdue me yourself?”

“I have half a mind to,” Dia replied, finally swatting Mari’s hand away. “I could, easily.”

“That’s enough,” Eli interrupted. Some part of her felt like it wasn’t her place to intrude on their conversation, due to the obvious personal nature of it. But this was still her office, and right now there were more important things than whatever personal issues Dia and Mari might have been facing. “Ohara-san. I can’t, in good conscience, send you out given what I know about your condition. But you’re also correct. If you want to leave, neither of us can stop you.”

“You’re taking her side in this?” Dia demanded.

“I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Eli replied. “I’m just stating the truth.”

“I’m leaving, then,” Mari decided, already turning towards the door.

“Like hell you are!” Dia shouted, starting to lurch forward. “I’m not letting you get killed! If I have to beat some sense into you to make you realize how stupid this is then I'll gladly-"

“Kurosawa-san!” Eli snapped, voice coming out harsh and stern, reprimanding in a way she hadn’t had to use for quite some time. “Control yourself. Have faith in Ohara-san to take care of herself. And remember that there are people in this city counting on us right now. We don’t have the leeway to be letting our emotions get the better of us. Not at a time like this.” Dia glared back at Eli when she heard all of that, narrowing her eyes and gritting her teeth together, and her hands were still balled into tight fists. After a few seconds, however, she turned back to Mari, slowly lowering back down into her seat.

“Promise me you’ll come back alive,” she demanded.

“What would the point of that be?” Mari replied. “We’ve broken dozens of promises to each other before.”

* * *

**12:26 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Katsushika, Tokyo**

“That thing is enormous!”

“Enormous and enormously deadly. Keep your wits about you.” Umi and Honoka were flying in over a residential neighborhood, trailing one of the massive dragon Silence that had been reported heading to this area. Now that they had arrived, it was already easy to see the monster, even from a distance; with how large it was, it would have been damn near impossible to miss.

The Silence had landed in the middle of a wide area of the street, claws tearing up the pavement underneath it with each step it took. Fortunately the neighborhood already appeared to have been thoroughly evacuated, and there were no pedestrians in sight. There were a few empty cars left on the side of the road, being crushed and knocked away as the monster prowled the street, but property could be replaced. Lives couldn’t.

“What do we do about this?” Honoka asked, finally coming to a stop fifty feet up in the air, watching the beast below.

“We start firing,” Umi replied. “And we don’t stop firing until it's dead.” Honoka looked towards Umi and raised an eyebrow when she heard that, startled by the simplicity of the battle plan. Typically, Umi was the sort of person who always had a clever trick or a convoluted scheme up her sleeve. If the best she could come up with was “hit it very hard,” that was telling of just how dire this situation was. Of course, Honoka wasn’t going to complain about that. This plan was more her speed anyway.

“Alright!” she agreed. “Start us off, Umi-chan!”

“Right,” Umi agreed, nodding before raising her arm in front of her. Her bow immediately materialized in her grip, and as she raised her other hand to the string an arrow appeared as well. As the arrow was notched it suddenly split apart into a dozen other arrows, all lined up neatly along the length of the string as well, rounding out along the full curve of the bow, and with her arsenal readied Umi pointed them all skyward. “One Thousand Arrow Volley!” she shouted.

“Mirror Arrow Volley!” Honoka shouted immediately after, a differently-colored but otherwise identical bow and set of arrows taking form in her own hands. And then, in perfect unison, Umi and Honoka fired their bows into the air, and their arrows darkened the sky.

Twenty or thirty arrows flew upward all at once, blue and orange shimmering and mixing in with each other, though they didn’t stop there. The arrows flew higher until they reached the peak of their arc, slowing and pivoting back down, and as they did so they all simultaneously began to break apart. One arrow split into two, and then those two split as well, the arrows multiplying exponentially as they plummeted towards the ground, and towards the Silence below. One by one the arrows multiplied until eventually, true to the attack’s name, two-thousand arrows were falling towards the street in a massive shimmering column.

The Silence still wasn’t paying Umi and Honoka any mind, apparently content to focus on its rampage down the street, though its attention would certainly be captured the moment a legion of arrows began to rain down on its back. The moment the first arrow connected with the creature’s hide it exploded in a vibrant flash, and then the next one did the same, and the next one, until in just fractions of a second the entire street was consumed with a strobing too bright and blinding to possibly look directly at. The Silence let out an earth-shaking roar from the epicenter, but even that was drowned out by the noise of the arrows exploding on contact with its body, deafening all else around them.

For a few seconds the light put off by all those small explosions was bright enough that Umi and Honoka couldn’t make anything else out against it. Still, Umi kept her eyes trained down on the street even as she narrowed them, searching for any indication of what condition the Silence was in. An attack like that would easily be enough to put most Silence in the ground, but Umi could already tell this one was different, and she didn’t expect things to be that easy. She realized just a moment too late that she was right.

A beam of energy tore through the air, bright purple and wide as a bus, firing straight towards where Umi and Honoka were floating. “Look out!” Umi shouted, barely able to twist out of the way of the beam while Honoka cleared it on the other side. She could feel energy crackling along her skin from how close it came, sending a shiver down her spine, and as she looked towards the street again she saw the Silence still looming there, looking entirely unfazed by her and Honoka’s attack. Its jaw was stretched wide open, little sparks of purple energy still crackling along the inside out its mouth, telling Umi where that attack had come from. Still, it was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Silence were dangerous, but their danger was usually limited to claws and teeth and spines. Whatever this creature was capable of, it was something Umi had never seen in her life.

“Eli,” Umi said, pressing a finger to her earpiece as she watched the sparks inside the Silence’s mouth begin to grow stronger, surely warning of another impending attack. “Are you there?”

“I am,” Eli replied. “Have you found your target? Is everything alright?”

“We have. Honoka and I are engaging it now. But… It’s using some sort of energy beam attack. I don't know how, but it's dangerous. It nearly took us both out the first time. Warn everyone else what these large ones are capable of.”

“Roger. I’ll pass that along. Stay safe.” The line went dead after that, and not a moment too soon. The Silence had charged fully, and another blast of energy shot through the air, right towards Umi. She was prepared for it this time, at least, dropping down from the air and avoiding it more readily.

“Honoka! Now!” Umi shouted, looking up towards her teammate as the energy beam ripped over her head. Honoka already seemed to be one step ahead of Umi: she already notched her bow again, this time with a single arrow, much larger and brighter than any of the smaller ones she had fired off before. And, without needing to be told twice, she fired the arrow off, directly down towards the monster’s open mouth.

It was a good thought, but one that was doomed from the start. The moment the arrow left Honoka’s bow the Silence shifted its attention, pivoting its head and dragging its beam of destructive energy with it as it went. Honoka’s arrow was soaring through the air, and was right on target, but well before it had the chance to connect the energy beam sliced through it, exploding the arrow and rendering it useless. And then, with the first threat neutralized, the Silence whipped its head around again, swinging its beam with it rapidly. And this time, Umi didn’t have the chance to dodge.

She tried to get out of the way, but the beam was moving too fast for that to have ever been possible. Her entire body was consumed in searing pain the moment it struck her, making her vision go white, making her lungs feel like they had collapsed. The pain was so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that it shut out everything else, and for a moment Umi started to think she was dead. She was snapped back to reality as she slammed into the pavement, realizing she had dropped from the sky, and the hard impact with the ground only worsened her pain even further. She tried to push herself up, knowing she didn’t have time to be laying around licking her wounds, but her body refused. She could barely even move, let alone stand.

“UMI!” she heard Honoka’s voice screaming, and she was barely able to turn her head enough to see her friend dropping onto the ground beside her, running over as quickly as she could. “Umi! Are you okay?? Are you hurt??”

“I’m- I’m okay,” Umi grunted back. “Okay” was absolutely a stretch, but she didn’t think she was at risk of immediate death. Not unless the Silence came back for a second pass- which, if the thundering footsteps shaking the ground were any indication, it intended to.

“You piece of shit!” Honoka shouted, turning around towards the monster that was slowly prowling towards her, seeming entirely undaunted by the way it towered over her. “Nobody hurts my best friend and gets away with it!” As she shouted Honoka summoned her bow up again, beginning to rapidly fire off arrow after arrow, but just like before the shots bounced impotently off the monster’s skin, not even slowing its approach.

“Honoka,” Umi grunted out, gritting her teeth together at the pain that was caused just by speaking. “It’s- It’s too strong. Get yourself out of here. Wait for backup.”

“No way!” Honoka protested, still firing off arrow after useless arrow. “I’m not leaving you behind!”

“Honoka!” Umi snapped. “If you stay here we’re both dead! Get to safety!”

“No!” As each arrow crashed against its skin the Silence kept coming closer and closer, until it was finally within range to snap its jaw open again. Dark crackles of energy danced along the inside of its mouth, just like before, and at this range Umi could feel the charge in the air well before it even fired.

“You have to get out of here!” she screamed. “It’ll kill you!”

“I’m not leaving you to die!”

“HONOKA!” And then the Silence fired, and Umi closed her eyes to brace for the end.

But it never came.

Umi heard the blast. She could feel the energy pulsing through the air all around her. She could even see it, so bright it burned into her vision even when her eyes were shut. But she didn’t feel the pain. She didn’t feel death.

Slowly, Umi opened her eyes again. The beam was so bright it was difficult to see anything against it, but after a moment Umi was able to make out what had saved her: another person that had arrived on the scene, standing between herself and Honoka and the Silence, with two enormous, feathered wings wrapped around in front of her like a shield. The beam was smashing directly against the wings, but they held strong, protecting Umi and Honoka from the attack that surely would have killed them. The woman stayed as she was for a moment, and then her wings tightened in even more, before sweeping outward with so much force that they sent debris flying down the street in every direction. The energy from the Silence’s beam was flung backward onto the beast itself, sending it staggering back. And then, with Umi staring up at her, standing there with her wings outstretched like a literal angel come down from heaven, Kotori spoke.

“You’ve already taken one of the people I love,” she said. “I’ll tear you to pieces before I let you take any more.”

* * *

**12:35 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Setagaya, Tokyo**

“That thing is massive…” Hanayo said, staring down at yet another one of the dragon Silence, rampaging through the neighborhood below.

“Good,” Rin said, lips already curling up into an eager grin. “The bigger it is, the more places there are to stab it!

“Don’t get cocky,” Nico insisted. “You heard the warnings, right? This thing’ll fuck you up if you’re not careful.”

“Woah! You know it must be bad if Nico-chan is saying to be careful!”

“I just don’t want to be bailing either of you two out of danger. Now,” Nico said, eyes narrowing as she watched the beast move through the street, tail swinging back and forth and smashing against buildings in its wake. “Are you ready?”

“Ready!” Rin said.

“Ready!” Hanayo agreed.

“Then let’s go.” The moment she said that Nico dropped out of the sky, letting herself plummet towards the ground and get in closer to her target. She fell ten feet, then twenty, though the moment she was close enough she stopped abruptly again, throwing a hand forward. Another hand materialized in the air further away, far enough down the street to be in reach of the Silence, and it was enormous in scale, enough so that it could wrap its entire grip around the beast’s tail. It did just that, gripping tightly and ripping the Silence backwards, and it was clear the monster didn’t tolerate that in the slightest. It roared out the moment Nico tried to drag it away, claws digging down into the pavement and tearing it up underfoot, wings unfurling and smashing into the sides of the buildings on either side of it. And then it pivoted abruptly, swinging its tail around, and smashing right through the hand Nico had conjured in the process.

“Shit!” Nico muttered, recoiling away as she watched how easily the Silence shook off her attack. She had bigger problems than just that, though: the Silence had already opened its jaw wide, and Nico could see energy starting to crackle inside its mouth. Surely an indication of the attack Eli had warned her about. “Hanayo!” Nico shouted.

“I’ve got you!” Hanayo called back, not a moment too soon. In another split second a searing beam of energy had exploded from the mouth of the Silence, and it would have caught Nico dead on were it not for the shimmering barrier that appeared to protect her.

“Now it’s Rin time!” Rin shouted, dipping down below Nico and the barrier, seizing this window of opportunity. She flew along as fast as she could, just above the ground, staying well underneath the beam still burning through the air above her, and she’d already summoned up claws at the ends of her hands, ready to strike at the Silence while it was exposed. “The bigger they are!” she called out, sweeping in for the kill. “The harder! They! Fa-” And then she swung her claws against the Silence’s neck, and they shattered like glass against the creature’s skin.

Rin’s eyes went wide with shock as she realized just how ineffectual her attack had been, but she wasn’t given long to dwell on it. The energy beam had subsided, but the moment Rin’s claws connected the Silence swung its head to the side, jaw smashing into Rin with the weight of an oil tanker. Rin was sent spiraling through the air and crashing to the street below, leaving Nico and Hanayo scrambling to protect her.

“Are you alright?” Hanayo shouted, immediately summoning up another barrier to separate Rin from the Silence, while Nico swooped down to land next to her. The Silence was still coming closer, shaking the ground with each footstep, and when it reached the wall Hanayo had put up it reared its head back, before slamming it down against the sheet of energy. The barrier didn’t break instantly, but it began to flicker and shake, and it was clear Hanayo wouldn’t be able to maintain it under direct attack for long.

“I’m okay!” Rin tried to assure the other two, forcing herself back to her feet despite the obvious pain she was in. Nico helped her up, and in doing so she realized just how much weight Rin was putting on her. Clearly, a long war of attrition wasn’t going to go in their favor. If they wanted to stand a chance against this monster, they needed to finish this fast.

“Stand back,” Nico said, nudging Rin off her, and Rin followed the instruction, backing up just a little bit. “I’m about to put this fucker in the ground.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Rin warned.

“No such thing,” Nico replied. She closed her eyes, taking one deep breath to center herself and summon up as much strength as she could, and then she opened them again, hair beginning to blow back from the energy she had built up. “Hecatoncheiran Hammering!”

As Nico spoke those words, the air around the Silence shifted and distorted- and then, all at once, a hundred hands had appeared in the air around the monster, surrounding it from every angle. They didn’t waste a single moment, all of them shooting downwards, slamming against the Silence’s carapace, then pulling back, before slamming down again, as quickly and forcefully as Nico could manage. The volley of relentless attacks connected with so much force that the ground shook, that the sound of blow after dull blow throbbed in Nico’s eardrums and made her heart pound even faster than it already was. Each punch cracked through the street and rattled Nico’s very bones, and there were hundreds upon hundreds of them, dozens at a time, slamming down over and over within half a second each time. Despite her cocky confidence Nico could feel herself growing tired, the drain from conjuring that many hands at once quickly growing heavy on her, but she refused to let up as long as she had even an ounce of strength left, using all she had to pummel the Silence down into the ground and beat it out of this world permanently.

And even then, it still wasn’t enough.

As the barrage of punches continued to rain down on it the Silence reared its head back, letting out another screech that tore through the air, shaking the ground and shattering the glass of nearby buildings. More than that, though, it shattered the hundred arms Nico had created as well, causing them to disappear in a fleeting burst of bright light. Hanayo’s barrier suffered the same fate, finally shattering completely, leaving nothing between Nico and Rin and the monster. Nico’s blood ran cold as she realized just how ineffectual her attack had been, though that only lasted for a moment before the overwhelming exhaustion set in as well. She had pushed herself to her limit with that attack, and it had barely done a damn thing. Now her knees were buckling and she was falling to the ground, doubling over while trying to stave off the surge of nausea that was coming up from deep inside her.

“Nico-chan!” Rin shouted, running forward and dropping down next to her. Nico felt a hand against her shoulder, but that sensation was quickly drowned out by the way the entire earth shook under each lumbering step the Silence took while it began to come closer to them. Nico lifted her head again, teeth still clenched together tightly, watching as the beast steadily approached.

“We have to run,” she said. “We can’t fight this thing. We have to get out of here.” It was a decision she took no pride in, but when the alternative was certain death it was an easy choice.

“We can handle this!” Rin tried to insist. “Kayochin and I can-”

“You _can’t_ ,” Nico interrupted. “None of us can. We need a fucking army. We need-”

“This?” And just as that familiar voice cut across the scene a blinding flash of light came down from above, cascading down into a pillar directly onto where the Silence was standing. The beam was a vibrant silver, and after the initial flash subsided there was something almost calming and soothing about- to Nico, at least. The Silence, however, was suddenly recoiling backwards, roaring out in pain, and as it pulled away from the pillar Nico could see its body burning away where the light had struck.

The beam of light subsided just a moment later, and then Nico looked skyward, and Rin and Hanayo did the same alongside her. Descending down from the sky, body draped in loose, flowing white cloth, long dark hair whipping through the air behind her, was Nozomi.

“You girls look like you could use some help,” she said, raising up a hand that was already beginning to glow with moonlight once more. “Maybe I can be of some assistance.”


	14. Turning Tides

**12:38 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Setagaya, Tokyo**

The sight of Nozomi descending down from the sky was nearly enough to make Nico cry tears of relief- not that she would ever allow herself to display such a showing of weakness in front of Hanayo and Rin, of course. It was clear from the looks on the faces of her teammates, however, that they felt similarly, and it would have been damn near impossible not to. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that, back when µ's had still been active, Nozomi had been the strongest out of any of them when they were being measured by a metric of pure strength. Right now, with the size of the enemies they were facing, brute force might have been the exact thing they needed.

“You sure took your time showing up here,” Nico huffed. “Just had to make a dramatic entrance, didn’t you?”

“Showmanship is everything, Nicochi,” Nozomi replied, smiling back down at her from above. “I would have thought you of all people would know that by now.”

“Not to interrupt,” Hanayo cut in, looking towards the Silence that, after reeling away after being struck by Nozomi’s attack, was now turning its attention back towards them again. “But I think we have bigger problems.”

“So we do,” Nozomi agreed. The monster looked like it had shaken off the pain of the blast by now, and while there was still a little deteriorated patch of flesh where Nozomi’s attack had struck, it didn’t seem like that was actually enough to keep the Silence down for long at all. “You seem like you put a lot of yourself into that last attack, Nicochi,” Nozomi said. “How are you feeling?”

“Give me thirty seconds to catch my breath and I’ll do it all over again,” Nico replied. Somehow Nozomi doubted that was true, but thankfully she didn’t need it to be.

“That much won’t be necessary,” she said. “Just be ready to deal the killing blow once I weaken it.”

“Don’t hog all the glory for yourself!” Rin protested. “What do you need from us?” Nozomi seemed to consider that question for a moment, glancing around the battlefield once more for a moment, before her eyes landed on Hanayo.

“Can you corral it?” she asked.

“How so?”

“Put up walls around it. Keep it trapped in as tight a space you can. It’ll take me a minute to ready myself.”

“I can try,” Hanayo said. “But this thing is strong. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it trapped.”

“Do your best,” Nozomi replied. “I have faith in you.” Hanayo nodded in response, then turned her attention out towards the Silence, who finally seemed to have recovered from the first attack and was righting itself fully again.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Hanayo called out, clapping her hands together and stretching them outward. More barriers immediately shimmered into existence, shooting out from where she was standing and wrapping around the Silence completely, immediately making a small pen to contain it. The walls were around ten feet high, and the Silence looked disoriented as they first appeared, quickly slamming its body against one of them, only to find that, at least for the moment, they were holding strong. Very quickly, though, the Silence took notice of the lack of a ceiling overhead, and it spread its wings out, ready to soar up into the sky. Nozomi had been counting on that.

“Lunar Summoning!” she shouted, clapping her hands together just in front of her chest. Instantly a shining silver light appeared in the sky above the Silence, much like the beam of energy Nozomi had called down before, though this time it was behaving differently. Rather than a beam it started as a single point, before quickly expanding outward, growing into a perfectly round sphere, hanging there like a bizarre, out of place full moon in the center of midday Tokyo. The sphere grew larger and larger until it was a bit over ten feet across in diameter, at which point it stopped, and Nozomi quickly flicked her hands down in front of her.

“Moonfall!” she called out. The sphere shuddered at her words, and then, gradually, it started to descend downwards towards the ground, and towards the Silence beneath it. It was falling slowly, slow enough that it would have been easy for an agile target to simply outrun it. But that was where the walls came in.

As the Silence realized that up was no longer an escape route, with the ball of light steadily coming closer and closer, it instead turned its attention back to the barriers around it. Once more it started to smash itself against them as hard as it could, the sound of the impact echoing down the street and thudding against Nozomi’s eardrums, and she could tell that this time it was doing at least a little bit of damage. The barriers rippled and shook upon the impact, their shine beginning to falter.

“Hold strong, Hanayo!” she called out.

“I’m doing the best I can!” Hanayo shouted back. Another bash of the Silence’s body, another disruption in the barrier, over and over again, to the point that Nozomi feared they were truly going to break. But they only needed to hold fast for another second or two. Her moon was descending more with each moment, until it was just above the Silence. And, with the walls around it and the moon above, there was nowhere for the monster to run.

The moment the Silence made contact with the outside of that ball of silver light, a deafening roar of pain tore through the entire street. The effect was the same as the pillar of light Nozomi had summoned earlier, but at a much larger scale now, burning away at the Silence’s body, causing the outside of its form to start deteriorating right in front of her eyes. The Silence thrashed around even more aggressively than before now, desperately trying to get itself free, but the walls kept it in place, unable to run anywhere as the sphere slowly engulfed its entire body.

For a few long seconds the Silence was kept there, silver light slowly burning away at it more and more, weakening it and causing more of its otherworldly body to vanish into the ether. For all her strength, however, conjuring up that much energy at once was still draining for Nozomi. She knew she wouldn’t be able to manage it for more than ten, fifteen seconds at most, and she only had to hope that it would do enough damage during that time to weaken the Silence sufficiently.

Finally, as the strain on her became too much, Nozomi was forced to let the sphere collapse all at once, imploding in on itself, shattering Hanayo’s barriers as well. The Silence was left reeling in the center, already looking like it was preparing to pick itself up and strike again, but all it took was a glance for Nozomi to see just how feeble its body was at this point.

“Nicochi!” she shouted. “Now!”

“Got it!” Nico called back, raising her arms up and taking a deep breath, summoning up whatever amount of strength she had managed to regain over the past few seconds. Right now, however, she couldn’t afford to hold anything back.

“NICO!” she shouted, thrusting one hand out while, fifteen feet away, a massive glowing hand appeared, grabbing hold of the Silence’s head and yanking it up from the ground. “NICO!” she shouted again, another hand appearing, this one grabbing the Silence firmly by the tail. And then, as Nico pulled her hands in opposite directions and the magical hands she had summoned did the same, tearing away from each other and ripping the Silence’s damaged body completely in half, she screamed at the top of her lungs: “NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

With the Silence already in its weakened state, Nico’s attack was enough. The hands she had summoned pulled away from each other and, with one last roar of pain, the Silence was torn completely in two. The halves began to dissipate the moment they were separated, quickly vanishing into nothing, and Nico’s magic hands disappeared just as quickly. The moment they were gone Nico herself fell to her knees, panting for breath as she once again realized that she might have exerted herself just a little bit too much. But that didn’t matter. Because, at least for right now, the threat was dealt with. For now, she could at least afford to give herself five minutes of rest.

“That was amazing!” Rin exclaimed, bouncing over towards Nico, still looking just a little bit too excited about the life or death situation they had all just been in.

“Yeah, well, I can’t exactly take all the credit,” Nico muttered. “Nozomi did a hell of a number on that thing.”

“Is that modesty I sense, Nicochi?” Nozomi teased, floating down and landing on the street just in front of Nico. She was clearly exhausted as well, breathing heavily, straining to keep her smile up, but she was at least holding herself together a bit better than Nico was at the moment. “It’s certainly an odd look on you.”

“Shut the hell up,” Nico grunted back. “I can be totally modest when I wanna be.”

“Of course you can,” Nozomi chuckled back, though she sounded unconvinced.

“What do we do now?” Hanayo cut in, looking over towards Nozomi. Nozomi glanced back at Hanayo for a moment, and then she looked around at the rest of the group. Nico was clearly downright exhausted, and while Rin seemed to be grinning and bearing it well enough, the stiffness in her movements and the winces of pain each time she moved too abruptly (which she seemed quite fond of doing) were enough to betray her own condition as well. That was to say nothing of Nozomi herself either, who was still feeling quite drained from the effort she had put into that attack.

“Right now,” Nozomi replied, “we just hope everyone else can take care of themselves as well.”

* * *

**12:39 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Arakawa, Tokyo**

Three Mermaids had been chasing after one of the five enormous Silence ever since they had watched them first appear, and now they were finally catching up to one of them. They had followed it all the way into Arakawa, where the monster was rampaging up and down along the grassy edge of a riverbank. That was good for two reasons: one, it meant there were no people and very little property to be damaged in the chaos. And two, it meant You was right in her element.

“Alright!” Riko called out to her teammates, keeping her eyes on the Silence as they approached it. “Get ready to attack, and remember the warnings we heard! Everyone be careful!”

“Right!” Chika agreed.

“Got it!” You added, already grinning from ear to ear with excitement. It wasn’t every day she got to cut loose to this degree. She probably should have been nervous or wary, but instead, she was looking forward to this.

The Silence didn’t seem to have taken notice of them just yet, and You was going to take advantage of that for all it was worth. As they came up on the beast she dropped down out of the sky to bring herself closer, though really, it was the river that she was paying more attention to. As she got in range she raised a hand and gave a small flick of her wrist, and instantly, the water responded.

Controlling water, it turned out, was easy. Normally the strength of You’s attacks was limited by the fact that she was conjuring water up herself, and creating something from nothing put a heavy amount of strain on her. When there was a massive, nearly endless supply of water sitting right there, though, just waiting for her to take advantage of it? There was practically nothing standing in her way.

You raised her arm higher, and almost effortlessly, the entire river started to bend. It lifted up into the air, like something massive was rising out from underneath it, retaining its shape as what must have been thousands of gallons rose towards the sky. The water twisted and churned, pushing in and crashing against itself, but it stayed tightly packed, towering up so high that it started to block out the sun. The enormous shadow it cast over the riverbank was finally enough to capture the Silence’s attention, causing it to turn towards the vertical river taking shape beside it. But by then it was too late.

“Bye, bitch.” And with that You swung her hand down, sending the entire river crashing down towards the Silence. The beast immediately spread its wings out in an attempt to fly away, but it wasn’t able to do so before being buried underneath a crashing, roaring torrent of water, so violent and tumultuous the Silence disappeared underneath it entirely. “You’re up, Chika-chan!”

“On it!” Chika shouted, dropping down towards the flow of water, hands already crackling with Lightning. “Raijin River!” Powerful forks of electricity shot down from her hands in concentrated beams as she shouted that, crackling with as much energy as Chika was able to safely put into them. The lightning jolted down until it hit the surface of the water at which point, immediately, it surged through the entirety of the torrent You had created. Chika sustained the attack as well, continuously pouring more and more energy forward until the whole rush of water was lightning up and crackling so brightly that it almost seemed to overpower the sun, causing Chika’s eyes to burn just from looking at it. She kept her eyes on it all the same, though, letting her vision constantly dart back and forth to search for any sign of the monster still lurking somewhere inside. So far, so good.

Together, Chika and You kept that attack up for nearly a solid minute, You drawing more and more water out from the river to flood the bank and keep the Silence down, wherever it had ended up, while Chika kept firing off as much electricity as she could, channeling it through her arms and out of her fingertips even as her limbs started to go numb. Finally the strain got to be too much for her, and with a deep sigh she broke the electrical current, letting her tingling arms drop back down to her sides.

“Did we get it?” she called out, while You finally brought the rush of water to an end as well, letting one final wave crash down. You’s eyes were quickly scanning banks as well, looking through the areas where the water was still crashing down and churning around, and for a moment all seemed good. Until-

“Dammit,” she muttered out. “Over there!” The Silence had ended up a good two hundred feet from where it had first been standing, likely swept away by the water’s currents, but as the flood subsided around it You could see that it was still standing there, the same as ever. It was dripping now, of course, and its wings were drooped down, motions jittery, in what You hoped was a sign that their attack had at least damaged it. But it was, most certainly, still standing.

“Of course it can never just be easy,” Riko groaned.

“Plan B then, eh?” You asked.

“Plan B indeed.” Riko kept her eyes on the Silence, and so far, it looked like Plan B was already going exactly the way they wanted it to: now that it had recovered from the initial onslaught the Silence was opening its mouth, and Riko could see sparks of energy forming along the inside in the exact way she had been warned about. Against just about anyone else that would have been a bad sign, but for Riko, this was actually a good thing. After all, if these Silence were so powerful, what better way to defeat them than with their own strength?

Riko watched intently as the charge inside the Silence’s mouth built up stronger and stronger, knowing she was only going to have a narrow chance to get this right. Having not actually seen this attack in person before she didn’t know exactly how long it was going to take either, and though she could guess, she was really just limited to her own reflexes. She felt a lump forming in her throat, and her heart was beating quickly now, adrenaline coursing through her, but she just kept staring at the Silence, refusing to even blink as the charge got stronger and stronger and stronger. Until, finally, it fired.

It took a fraction of a second for the beam of energy to tear through the air and reach Riko, and that fraction of a second was all the time she had to react. It was just enough, though; the moment Riko saw the beam fire she tore her hands through the air in front of her, and just a few inches away a portal ripped itself open in the air, catching the blast just before it would have struck her. And down on the ground, another portal opened as well.

The second portal appeared just beside the Silence, and the moment it did the monster’s beam was redirected, catching it on the side and tearing into the Silence’s own body. It struck far harder than Riko would have expected, hard enough to make her glad she hadn’t been caught by the attack. The impact sent the Silence reeling, staggering several feet to the side, and although the attack was interrupted the moment the Silence struck itself, it was clear the damage had already been done. Even from where she was, floating in the sky well above the scene, Riko could make out the gash the Silence had left in its own side. It felt like a miracle, but this had worked.

“Nice job, Riko-chan!” she heard Chika shouting. But this wasn’t over yet.

“I still have to keep it up!” Riko called back. Timing this once had been hard enough. Timing it repeatedly, until she could actually weaken the Silence enough to kill? That was going to be even more difficult. Especially now that the Silence, she was coming to realize, was working itself into a frenzy.

The Silence opened its mouth again, and Riko prepared for it to charge up in the same way it had before, only to find that, to her grim shock, it barely needed any time to do so. It hardly could have been more than half a second between when the monster’s jaw opened and when that beam came tearing out, and although the beam was shorter this time, shooting out more like a bolt than an actual continuous beam at all, it was still enough to send Riko recoiling away in a desperate attempt to dodge it.

“Shit!” she muttered, barely having time to pull herself out of the way of the blast, and certainly not having time to get a portal open. As she went twisting through the sky, able to feel the rush of energy against her skin, she looked down towards the ground, where she saw the monster’s jaw still wide-open. And then, just a moment after that second attack, a third one came. And a fourth. And a fifth.

The Silence was letting loose blasts of energy in a rapid-fire volley at this point, faster than Riko could possibly keep up with. It wasn’t just targeting her either, but firing them off wildly in every direction, aiming towards Chika and You as well, and just as frequently firing at the landscape around them, or at the buildings in the distance, attacking anything it could. It seemed like the beast was frantic at this point, working itself into a panic, but that panic only made it that much more dangerous.

“Riko!” You shouted. “The portals!”

“I’m- I’m trying!” Riko shouted back. She kept moving through the air, if only to prevent herself from becoming an easy target, but even then trying to actually predict where the blasts were going to end up and dodge them felt next to impossible. And that was to say nothing of actually opening up portals to intercept any of them- Riko tried to do just that, tearing portals open in the sky where she thought the blasts were going to end up, but it was fast becoming apparent just how hopeless that plan was. The attacks were too random, too quick, and all of her portals ended up hovering uselessly in the air while the beams of energy just went soaring past them.

“I’ve got an idea!” Chika called out. “Keep that portal open!” Riko didn’t know what Chika was planning, but at this point anything felt better than what they were trying. Another one of Riko’s failed portals was hanging open in the air a few feet away from Chika, with the other end opening out right beside the Silence, and as Riko watched Chika fly directly for her portal she started to get a sense of what her teammate might have in mind. Sure enough, Chika flew right through it, and the moment she did so she disappeared from the sky, reappearing near the ground right next to the Silence instead.

“Be careful, Chika!” Riko shouted, but Chika already seemed like she was well past the point of that concern.

“Take this, you ugly fucker!” Chika shouted, flying out of the portal at top speed and slamming right into the Silence’s leg, wrapping her arms and legs around it like it was a tree she was trying to climb. It seemed to get the Silence’s attention, momentarily stopping its frantic onslaught, and then Chika’s entire body started to crackle with electricity, and that electricity quickly overtook the monster as well.

Once more the surge of lightning rushing off Chika was blinding, though this time it was consuming her entire figure, rather than just crackling out from her hands. It coursed through the Silence as well, causing it to stutter and jitter and roar out in pain, and for a moment Riko thought this might have been worth it. She knew how dangerous it was for Chika to be using her entire body like a conduit like that, and it was something she never would have encouraged under normal circumstances. Right now, though, they needed any advantage they could get. And even then, it still wasn’t enough.

For a few seconds the Silence seemed thoroughly locked up by the charge, barely even able to move itself as it twitched and thrashed violently in Chika’s grip. But suddenly it seemed to break from that paralysis, and then it whipped its head around, massive, razor-sharp jaws suddenly crunching down into Chika’s arm, ripping her away from its leg.

Riko’s heart stopped when she saw the Silence tear into Chika’s skin, saw blood gushing out from her shoulder even at this distance. The beast snapped its head to the side, hurling Chika, and she practically went limp, tumbling through the air like a ragdoll. She must have flown twenty feet before she finally smashed into the wall of a bridge running over the river, at which point she crumpled down to the ground, twitching and quivering and grabbing at her arm as blood continued to gush out. And when Riko saw that, something inside of her snapped.

Riko could barely process what happened next. She didn’t feel like she was in control of her actions, and she didn’t even know she knew _how_ to do those actions in the first place. It was like every other thought in her mind had shut down, though, and suddenly her body was moving on its own, acting on some instinct she didn’t even know she possessed. Her hands were shaking, but it wasn’t from fear, or adrenaline, or exhaustion. It was from _power_. Some power she didn’t even know she had.

A portal opened in the air, just next to the Silence, though this one was immediately, visibly different from the portals Riko normally opened. Normally her portals were entirely two-dimensional, like a single tear through the fabric of space that linked two different points. If viewed at the wrong angle, they wouldn’t even look like they were there. This portal, however, was three-dimensional, starting out as a single point and rapidly spreading into a sphere, and in fact, it barely even looked like a portal to begin with. It was more like a break in space itself, like some other landscape, like some other _reality_ being superimposed overtop their own. As the sphere stretched out the grassy Tokyo riverbank was replaced by jagged, barren purple rocks, craggy and cracked underfoot, and the bright blue sky was replaced by a jet black one. The sphere stretched out further and further, until its edge was pushing past the Silence, swallowing it up inside, leaving the Silence standing on top of that dark, forbedoing terrain. And then, the moment the Silence was completely within the sphere’s boundaries, the entire distortion collapsed in on itself, disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. The grassy landscape was back, the dark, rocky terrain had vanished, and the Silence had disappeared with it.

As the rift subsided Riko was left floating there in the air, staring down at her own trembling hands, heart absolutely pounding inside her chest. She could still hardly believe what had just happened, and it was over so quickly that it was difficult to process. One moment that monster had been there, massive and dangerous and trying to kill them all, and now it just… Wasn’t.

“What the hell was that?” Riko heard You ask. “Where did you send that thing?” And Riko looked back up towards You, with an expression that was just as confused, before answering.

“I don’t know.”

* * *

**12:41 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Itabashi, Tokyo**

“You fucking _what_?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Like hell you didn’t!” Kanan snapped, shouting at Dia over her earpiece. “You know better than anyone what sort of condition she’s in! And you actually sent her out here?”

“What the hell did you want me to do?” Dia snapped back. “Beat her down? Physically restrain her?”

“Yeah, if that was the only option!”

“You know as well as I do that you’d have my head if I actually raised a hand against her,” Dia insisted. Kanan grit her teeth together, frustration growing as she continued to run between the rooftops of Itabashi, but before she could say anything else she saw her target: another of the enormous Silence, smashing against a building, already locked in combat with Saint Snow.

“I’m almost there. We’ll talk about this later,” Kanan muttered.

“Very well.”

“And hey, Dia?”

“Yes?”

“If anything happens to Mari, I’ll come back to that office, and I’ll fucking kill you.”

“If anything happens to her, I won’t try to stop you.” The line clicked shut after that, and Kanan turned her eyes in front of her, focused solely on trying to take stock of the scene before she arrived. Sarah and Leah looked like they were, all things considered, holding their own well enough. Much of the street they were fighting on had already turned into a frozen labyrinth, sheets and slides of ice arching around and covering nearly every inch of the landscape. To Kanan it looked like hell, but to Saint Snow, it was clear they were fighting on a home field advantage now. The Silence was skittering around as it moved, trying to find purchase on the slippery terrain, and largely failing to do so. Unfortunately, with a monster this size, it could be just as dangerous while skidding around chaotically as it could while standing its ground.

“Hey!” Kanan shouted down, coming to a stop on one of the rooftops right at the edge of the street, peering down at Sarah and Leah. Sarah seemed like she was in the middle of trying to manage the landscape, shooting up more walls and slopes of ice to keep the Silence from regaining its footing, while Leah was firing off a near-constant barrage of icicles, though most of them seemed to be clattering ineffectively off the monster’s body.

“Glad you’re here!” Sarah called back, looking up just long enough to meet Kanan’s gaze, before her eyes quickly returned to the Silence once more. “Help us out, yeah?”

“On it!” Kanan shouted, before immediately throwing herself over the edge of the rooftop, plummeting towards the ground below. The Silence was still scrambling about haphazardly as it tried to regain its bearings, and between the ice underfoot and the nonstop assault from Leah it didn’t seem like it was going to be able to. That left it in a perfect position for Kanan, who was already summoning her spear into her hand as she fell. She pointed the head of her spear down, aiming straight for the monster’s neck, bracing her body for impact. As her weapon finally met the monster’s flesh, though, she was sorely disappointed by the result.

She had been warned that these particular Silence were strong, and that they were more resistant to attacks than the garden variety, but she wasn’t prepared for just how dramatic that difference would be. Normally the head of her spear was able to cut through a Silence’s skin like paper, and even if she had been prepared for some resistance, Kanan wasn’t ready for her spear to simply bounce off without leaving so much as a dent. That was precisely what happened, though, leaving Kanan’s spear to crash against the Silence’s neck just as uselessly as Leah’s icicles, practically looking like she hadn’t even attacked it at all.

The Silence swung its head around violently the moment Kanan’s spear connected, and Kanan didn’t have time to get out of the way, leaving her to eat the full brunt of the attack as the monster’s head came slamming into her. She was sent reeling and tumbling towards the ground, hitting the ice Sarah had summoned and skidding along it a good distance, suddenly becoming all the more annoyed at its presence. Another flume of ice shot up right behind her, helping her to gradually come to a stop, and Kanan supposed she at least had to thank Sarah for that much. It still didn’t solve the larger problem, though.

“This thing’s sure durable, huh,” Kanan grunted out, forcing herself back to her feet, using her spear to support herself.

“You’re telling us,” Sarah replied, standing a few feet away. “We’ve been throwing everything we’ve got at it and we’ve hardly made a dent.”

“It’s hide is like a brick wall,” Kanan said. And all three of them, unfortunately, were coming in with decidedly physical attacks. Sarah and Leah could pack icicles as tight as they wanted and fire them off at a hundred miles per hour, but at the end of the day it was still just ice. And Kanan’s spear might have been made from magic, but it was still a spear. If they wanted to do any serious damage she had a feeling they were going to need something different. They were going to need…

“Mind if I butt in?” As soon as Kanan heard that familiar voice, in _this_ situation, her heart stopped. She had known it was coming, but she still hadn’t been prepared for it. Almost fearfully she lifted her eyes up towards the sound of noise, looking up above her to see the one thing she was terrified of seeing: Mari Ohara, descending down towards them as well.

It had been years since Kanan had seen Mari dressed in that outfit, so long that she almost couldn’t remember- but only almost, because really, that memory was burned into her mind so strongly she couldn’t forget it even if she wanted to. Back then Kanan had never thought she would see Mari don this costume again, and right now, she was wishing she had been right. The thought of Mari being present for a situation like this made her sick to her stomach.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, but Mari just rolled her eyes.

“Don’t act so surprised,” she replied. “Dia told you I was coming, didn’t she? And from the looks of it, you three could use the help right now.”

“You sure it’s safe for you to be here?” Sarah asked. “What with your, you know…”

“I appreciate the concern, but you should really be more worried about yourself,” Mari replied. “How long have you been beating your head against this problem to no avail? Right now, I think you need my help.”

“Right now I _need_ you to get the hell out of here,” Kanan bit back. “Get away from the danger, go somewhere safe, and wait for us to-”

“Look out!” Kanan was interrupted mid-sentence by Leah’s shouting, and she looked over to realize what she was being warned about just a moment too late. The Silence had already opened its jaw wide, and it was a split second away from firing off an attack.

“Shit!” Sarah muttered, dropping down to her knees and slamming her hands against the ground. She just barely had time to call up a massive sheet of ice between them and the Silence before it attacked, but even then it didn’t seem to do much. Kanan could hear the blast coming from the other side of the wall, and just a split second later it was shattering through the ice like nothing, leaving Kanan diving for cover. Sarah tried to get out of the way as well, but she wasn’t nearly as fortunate. The beam swept sideways, tearing through the entire wall like paper, and before Sarah was able to get to safety it caught her dead on, slamming into her and sending her flying several feet before she crumpled to the ground.

“ONEE-SAN!” Leah screamed, scrambling down from where she had been perched on top of one of the ice pillars, rushing over towards her sister. From where she was standing Kanan could see that Sarah was still breathing, which was some small relief. But if the Silence kept attacking that might not be the case for long.

“You need me,” Mari said, forcing Kanan to look back towards her again.

“We don’t,” Kanan tried to argue. “We can handle this ourselves. We can-”

“Kanan,” Mari interrupted, looking over and staring her straight in the eyes. “Do you think my life is worth more than anyone else’s?” Kanan stopped when she heard that, mouth hanging open while she tried to form a reply, and Mari kept talking before she could. “I’m not going to stand here and let everyone else die just because you refuse to let me put myself in danger. I’m sorry.”

“Mari!” Kanan tried to argue. “You can’t just do this! You can’t just-” But she was already too late to stop her. Mari stretched her arms out to her sides and began rising up into the air, up high enough that she came over the top of the crumbling wall to see the Silence on the other side, and Kanan was left to watch helplessly from the ground.

It had been years since Kanan had seen Mari use magic, but not a single thing about it seemed to have changed in that time. One of Mari’s hands stretched out in front of her, palm open and facing upward, and then dozens of wisps of shimmering light started to swirl and twist through the air in front of her. They came in from every direction, packing into a tight little sphere of energy in Mari’s hand, until there was a star floating there in her grip. It was blindingly bright, and even from the ground Kanan could feel the energy rushing across her, reminding her just how terrifyingly powerful Mari had been when she was at her peak. And then Mari raised her hand overhead, and hurled the star down towards the Silence.

The star soared through the air in an instant, slamming against the monster’s body and exploding like a bomb. The burst of energy it released was enough to send Kanan staggering backwards as well, even with the remains of Sarah’s wall still protecting her, and from the other side she could hear the Silence roaring out in pain. Her arms came up to cover her face as she tried to keep her footing on the ice, but through them she could just barely make out the Silence, reeling backwards from the impact of the attack. And, for the first time in this fight, it actually looked like something any of them had done had had an impact.

Kanan could make out the Silence’s body against the flash, and she could see the spot near its front shoulder where Mari’s star had impacted. That tiny, dense ball of pure energy had done its job, tearing into the monster’s flesh and leaving a burnt out hole where it had struck. While that might have been a step in the right direction, though, it also appeared to have succeeded in angering the Silence. The beast’s jaw stretched open wide again, energy crackling through the inside of its mouth, and then a split second later it was firing. “LOOK OUT!” Kanan screamed. But Mari didn’t even flinch.

Mari raised her hand as the beam of energy flew towards her, and just as quickly another sphere took shape in front of her, this one much larger than the first star she had summoned. She held it up like a shield, and while the beam crashed against it with terrifying force, it didn’t make it through. Mari held fast for another few seconds before, with a flick of her wrist, the star went soaring downward, tearing through the Silence’s beam until it crashed directly against the creature’s open mouth, and exploded just like the first one had.

Once more the Silence roared, out, reeling away from the attack, more of its body burning away, but Mari still wasn’t finished. She stretched both her arms out now, and from the ground Kanan watched as, all along the sky above the silence, a dozen, then two dozen, then a hundred stars faded into view all at once.

“MARI!” Kanan screamed up at her. Even down on the ground she could feel how much energy was coming off that many stars, and she knew the toll this must have been taking on Mari’s body. There was no way in hell it was safe for her to be doing this. But Mari didn’t seem to hear her, or if she did she just didn’t respond. She kept her arms out in front of her as more and more stars appeared along the sky, until there must have been two hundred, then three hundred, and the Silence stood there on the ground, looking towards the sky as the stars loomed overhead. And then Mari flicked her hands down, and all the stars plummeted to earth at once.

If the crash of a single star had strained Kanan’s vision, the crash of three-hundred blinded her completely. They slammed down with so much force that they drowned out the entire street, all exploding against the Silence’s body at once, and while Kanan swore she could hear the sound of the Silence roaring somewhere in the middle of it, it was completely drowned out by the sound of the explosions. The force that came off that many explosions at once was so strong that Kanan couldn’t even keep her own footing, and she was sent staggering backwards as the last remains of the wall of ice were torn down in front of her, sending chunks flying through the air. Once more she put her arms up to protect herself from the little shards that pelted her, mixed in with the debris from everything else that had been blown up off the street in the process.

The rush from the explosions was intense, but it was brief, and within just a few seconds it was subsiding just as quickly as it had started. As Kanan came sliding to a halt once more she blinked her eyes, trying to readjust to the normal lightning now that the flash was gone, and though it took a few moments she was eventually able to see what was in front of her. The sight laid out before her should have been a relieving one: a massive crater where the Silence had been standing, without a single trace of the monster itself left anywhere in sight. But any relief Kanan might have felt was nowhere to be found, because just a split second after she took in the crater she looked higher up, and saw the exact thing she was terrified of: Mari, falling limply out of the sky.

“MARI!” Kanan screamed out, lunging forward as fast she could, scrambling to find her footing on the remains of the ice. She sprinted as fast as her legs would carry her, diving forward just in time to catch Mari in her arms as she dropped to the ground. The moment she had Mari in her grip Kanan pulled her closer, frantically looking over her, desperately looking for signs of life. Mari’s eyes were open, if only barely, and she was breathing, even though that breathing was shallow.

“Fucking hell, Mari,” Kanan stammered out, clutching onto Mari as tightly as she could, her own arms shaking now from the fear she’d felt. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“You worry too much,” Mari replied. Her voice was quiet, and she was smiling, but that smile was clearly strained. “I did it, didn’t I?”

“That was stupid of you,” Kanan insisted. “That was reckless. That was way too much for you. Your body can’t handle that.”

“Clearly it can,” Mari replied. “Because I’m-” As soon as she started to say that she froze up, though, eyes going wide, hand suddenly clutching against Kanan’s shirt tightly, and Kanan’s heart rate shot back up when she felt that.

“Mari??” she blurted out. “What’s wrong??”

“N-Nothing-” Mari choked out, but her voice was strained and unconvincing, and only terrified Kanan even more. “I’m just-” And then she was cut off again, body tensing up in Kanan’s arms, clinging to Kanan even more tightly while her face twisted up in an expression of pain.

“Mari!” Kanan shouted. “Talk to me!”

“Maybe- M-Maybe, you were right-” Mari stammered, grip suddenly loosening, fingers uncurling around Mari’s shirt. “I’m s-sorry, Kanan…”

“Mari!” Kanan screamed. “MARI!” But no matter how loudly she shouted, no matter how tightly she clung to her, she couldn’t stop Mari from slumping down and going limp in her arms.

* * *

**12:41 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Kita, Tokyo**

“Is it still over there?”

“I think so. It’s moving.” Ruby was peering out from behind an upended car that had landed in the middle of the road, staring towards where yet another of the dragon Silence was rampaging down the street several blocks away. She and the rest of Little Demons had been on their way back to 909’s offices when, along their route, they had been intercepted by one of those monsters. So far it didn’t seem like it had noticed them just yet, but they were still trying to find the best route around it. Ruby had a feeling that if they just went out and tried to rush past it, they wouldn’t make it to the other side.

“What do we do, then?” Hanamaru asked, peering up at Ruby while she remained crouched down behind the car. Unfortunately, Ruby didn’t think she had a good answer for that.

“I’m gonna call onee-chan,” Ruby eventually said, reaching a finger up and pressing it against her earpiece. In the past, for as long as she could remember, Dia had always been the one Ruby trusted whenever she needed help with anything. Hopefully that could still remain true. As Ruby pressed the button on her earpiece there was a small beeping noise, and then a moment later she heard her sister’s voice.

“Ruby!” Dia blurted out. “Are you alright? Where are you?”

“We’re still in Kita,” Ruby replied, keeping her voice low as she spoke. “We ran into one of the Silence on the way back and now we’re stuck here. It hasn’t seen us yet, but I’m not sure if we can get past safely.”

“It hasn’t noticed you?” Dia repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Just stay where you are, then, and try not to draw attention,” Dia said. “Nishikino-san is already en route. She’ll get you out of there.”

“She’s coming alone?” Ruby asked.

“She’s all we could afford to send right now,” Dia replied, and Ruby’s expression turned a little more grim when she heard that. It wasn’t that she doubted Maki, or wouldn’t be glad to have her there. But given everything she’d seen so far about how strong these monsters could actually be, she wasn’t sure just one person was going to be enough. Then again, maybe she was just doubting her own abilities too much as well.

“Alright,” Ruby ended up replying. “We’ll wait for her to arrive.”

“Good,” Dia replied. “I’ll tell her that when she gets there her number one priority is safely evacuating you. You’re to get out of there and get back to the offices as quickly as possible, understood? Don’t try to fight that thing.”

“We’ll do our best,” Ruby replied. There was a small moment of pause there, and Ruby had to imagine Dia had picked up on the fact that she hadn’t actually made the promise that had been asked of her. If she did notice, though, she didn’t end up saying anything.

“Alright. I’ll see you soon. Get here safe.” And then another small pause, before she spoke again. “I love you, Ruby.”

“I love you too, onee-chan,” Ruby replied. “I’ll see you soon. I promise.” The line went dead after that, and Ruby slumped down next to her teammates, who were both looking towards her expectantly now.

“Well?” Yoshiko asked. “What did she say?”

“Nishikino-senpai is on her way out here,” Ruby replied. “Onee-chan said to stay here until she arrives, and then try to run away.”

“Figures,” Yoshiko muttered. “Of course she’s not gonna let us fight that thing.”

“You actually want to?” Hanamaru asked.

“I’m just saying, it’d be good for our image! If a couple of amateurs managed to take one of those big ones out, everyone would know our name overnight.”

“It would be bad for our image if we got ourselves killed, though,” Ruby replied. She understood Yoshiko’s ambition, and her drive to prove herself, she really did. But there was bravery, and then there was stupidity. With how big and dangerous this monster was, and with how new and untrained their group still was, facing off against it seemed like little more than a suicide mission. She wanted to get her name on the front page of the papers, but she didn’t want it to be for a tragedy.

“Did she say how far away Maki-chan is?” Hanamaru asked.

“I’m not sure,” Ruby replied, before daring to lift her head back up and peer out over the top of the car again. She surveyed her surroundings once more, and took relief in the fact that the Silence still didn’t appear to have noticed them. And then, starting out as a dot and the horizon and rapidly growing larger with each passing moment, Ruby felt a sense of relief when she saw a familiar figure approaching from above. “Look!” she said, pointing a finger towards the sky, and Hanamaru and Yoshiko immediately rose up to look as well.

Maki was coming in fast, and as she got closer Ruby could see that she was looking around frantically as well, most likely trying to pinpoint where, exactly, they were amid the ruined landscape that had once been a perfectly nice street. Ruby raised a hand into the air, waving it frantically, trying to get Maki’s attention without attracting the Silence’s as well, and after a few more seconds Maki looked directly towards her, telling Ruby that Maki had seen her.

The moment Maki laid eyes on them she dropped out of the sky, falling directly towards the Silence, and it didn’t take long for the Silence to notice her presence either. It looked up towards her as she fell from the sky, opening its jaw and gnashing its teeth together several times over. As Maki fell two images of her split off, translucent and sparkling pink, and while Maki plummeted directly down to the street in front of the Silence her images rushed towards it instead, crashing against the monster and exploding on impact.

“This is our chance!” Ruby said, suddenly jumping out from behind the car, beginning to run down the street. “Let’s go!”

“Hey!” Yoshiko blurted out behind her, scrambling to keep up. “Wait up!”

“No time for slowpokes, zura!”

The three of them scrambled down the street as fast they could, still trying to keep low to the ground, so they could avoid drawing as much attention to themselves as possible. As they went, though, Ruby couldn’t resist looking over towards Maki, unable to suppress the concern that was flaring up inside her. She knew that Maki was talented, far more talented than herself or Yoshiko or Hanamaru, but even she had her limits. Taking on a Silence of this strength and power, even if she was only trying to stall it… That seemed like a lot, even for her.

Ruby was right to be worried, it turned out. When she looked over again she saw Maki splitting off three more images of herself, all three of them quickly spreading out around the Silence in different directions. Two moved along the ground and one rose into the air above it, quickly forming a triangular pyramid. The moment they were each in position they stretched their arms out, and shimmering walls of light stretched out between them, each of Maki’s mirror images acting as one point on the pyramid that was now attempting to trap the Silence inside. But just a moment after the barriers formed the Silence started to thrash around within the confines of this space, smashing its tail and its head and its wings against the wall, and the barriers didn’t hold out for long against their attack. The pyramid was shattered within seconds, and as Maki’s clones vanished Maki herself was sent staggering backwards, barely managing to jump out of the way of the creature’s next attack. If things kept up this way, Ruby feared the worst for her. Suddenly, it didn’t matter if Maki had just been sent to rescue them. Ruby knew they couldn’t just leave her behind.

“Wait!” she called out to Yoshiko and Hanamaru, who had both already ended up a little bit ahead of her as they tried to flee. They paused at the sound of Ruby’s voice, looking back over their shoulders with obvious expressions of surprise, though Ruby just met them with a determined gaze of her own. “We can’t just leave her behind.”

“Like hell we can’t!” Yoshiko tried to protest. “She can take care of herself.”

“She needs us.”

“She came here to _rescue_ us,” Yoshiko tried to remind her, but Ruby just shook her head.

“I don’t want needing to rescue us to be the reason she gets herself killed. We should be able to take care of ourselves, right? We can’t always rely on Nishikino-senpai to bail us out when we get into trouble. Sooner or later, we need to be able to fight for ourselves.”

“And you’re picking _now_ to be that moment?” Yoshiko groaned. While she was still steadfast in her protests, though, it at least seemed like Ruby’s speech had won Hanamaru over. Or, if not that, her fondness for Maki had.

“She’s right, you know,” Hanamaru said, taking another step forward, towards Ruby, away from the direction of their escape. “We shouldn’t just leave her behind. Not if we could help.”

“For all we know, if we go back there we’ll just be getting in her way,” Yoshiko groaned. Still, she seemed like she was coming around to the idea as well, if only because she knew fleeing to safety while Ruby and Hanamaru stood and fought wasn’t going to be a good look for her. “Fine,” she eventually huffed, looking towards Ruby with an expression that was equal parts irritated and expectant. “What’s the plan, then?” That, Ruby had to admit, she hadn’t thought that through just yet. She was mostly acting on impulse at this point, and impulse was telling her she needed to get in there and help Maki. Figuring out _how_ she was going to help Maki was a different question altogether. If there was one person in the world who could help her, though, Ruby knew who it was.

“Onee-chan,” she said, pressing her earpiece once again, hearing the line come back to life. Dia’s response was almost immediate.

“Ruby!” she blurted out. “Are you still there? Is everything okay?”

“We’re safe,” Ruby promised her. “But… We’re not running away. We’re staying to fight.”

“You’re _what_?” Dia replied, tone one of immediate, obvious disbelief.

“Nishikino-senpai needs our help,” Ruby replied. “So we’re going to stay and help her.”

“Ruby, please listen to yourself,” Dia tried to protest. “I know you want to help. I understand that, but-”

“There’s no time for us to argue about this, onee-chan,” Ruby interrupted, keeping her tone entirely confident, and entirely level. “Nishikino-senpai needs our help. And we need your help. Now.” A small pause followed that, while Dia was quiet on the other end, and Ruby felt she could perfectly imagine the expression of frustrated indecision that must have been written across Dia’s face at the moment. If they’d had more time, Ruby had to imagine this argument would have gone on quite a while longer. But she had been right: they didn’t. And that alone seemed to be enough to persuade Dia.

“You’ve received the warnings about their energy beam attacks, I trust?” Dia asked.

“We have,” Ruby replied.

“Aside from that we’ve been seeing that energy-based attacks seem to be more effective against them. Brute physical attacks have been largely unable to pierce their hides. They have remarkable physical stamina as well, and even powerful attacks that would be able to kill lesser Silence have needed to strike multiple times to actually prove themselves useful.” A pause, and then she added one more thought. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“We’re ready,” Ruby promised.

“Stay on the line, okay?” Dia said. “I can coach you through this.” And upon hearing that, Ruby couldn’t stop some small smile from appearing on her face. This probably wasn’t the right time or place to get soft and sentimental, she realized that much. And yet… It felt nice, to finally have Dia’s support.

“Alright,” she replied. “I can do that.”

“Kunikida-san’s attacks are going to be your best bet against this thing,” Dia went on. “The crystal paralysis attack you used against that Silence during your first patrol would be effective as well, but I’m afraid this particular Silence is too dangerous and too large for you to get close enough to actually do any serious damage. I doubt Tsushima-san will be able to do much in the way of actually hurting it either, but her attacks could prove invaluable in restraining it long enough to allow the rest of you to strike. I would suggest she goes in first, and the rest of you follow up as quickly as you’re able while it’s immobilized.”

“You two hear that?” Ruby asked, looking over towards Yoshiko and Hanamaru, and the other two nodded back at her.

“You need that bastard brought down?” Yoshiko asked, grinning with a level of confidence that didn’t at all match the desire to retreat she had been showing just a moment before. “Leave it to me!”

“And as soon as it’s down, we’ll come in for the kill,” Ruby said, looking to Hanamaru.

“Got it, zura!”

“Alright, then,” Ruby said. “Let’s go.”

As soon as she said that all three of them broke forward, charging back in the same direction they had just come from, closing in on the spot where Maki was still battling the monster. Maki was holding her own well enough, considering it was a one on one fight against such a fearsome opponent, but even then “well enough” was a relative term. The Silence had started firing off energy blasts in the time Ruby had been talking to Dia, and now Maki seemed like she was mostly on the defensive, trying to dodge and block as many of those attacks as she could. She’d summoned up several more clones who had, in turn, formed a wall between them to stop the latest attack, though even then the wall only lasted for a few seconds before the beam broke through, and Maki was left diving down to the ground for cover.

“Nishikino-senpai!” Ruby called out as she approached, immediately causing Maki to look over in confusion and shock when she heard Ruby’s voice. “We’re here!”

“What the hell are you doing??” Maki shouted back. “You’re supposed to be getting out of here! Go!”

“No way!” Yoshiko shouted back. “We’re not leaving our teacher behind!” And while some party of Ruby wanted to criticize how valiant Yoshiko was attempting to act now, she supposed there was a time and a place for that.

“You’re gonna get yourselves killed!” Maki tried to argue, but Yoshiko was already dropping in for her first attack.

“Demonic Hands!” she called out, dropping down to the ground and slamming her palms against the pavement as underneath the Silence a ring of dark, flickering light began to appear. “Confine this wretched fiend! Deliver unto it your judgment!” The words may have been all for show, but they were doing their job all the same. The flickering grew more intense, and then, just a moment later, dozens of dark hands shot up out of the ground in unison, wrapping around the Silence and grabbing onto any part of it they could manage to get a hold of. They grabbed at its legs, its wings, its jaw, its tail, some of the longer arms even wrapping around its torso entirely, attempting to lock it down and hold it fast in place. The Silence started to fight back the moment it was restrained, thrashing around violently in every direction and roaring out at the top of its lungs, and while its strength was enough to rip through some of the hands and send them vanishing back into nothing, the sheer number seemed to be working in their favor at the moment.

“Now, Maru-chan!” Ruby called out.

“Got it!” Hanamaru replied, flying up above Yoshiko to look over the Silence, before setting up her next attack. “Lotus Blades!” At her command several flowers appeared in the air around Hanamaru, slightly larger than an average flower, each one about a foot in diameter. For a moment they hovered there, glowing beautifully in the midday sun. And then each of those flowers abruptly began to spin, gorgeous petals quickly whipping themselves up into sharp, whirling saws of destruction. With a flick of Hanamaru’s wrist the flowers were sent flying down towards the Silence, each of them targeting a different part of the monster’s body. One aimed for the neck while several others went for the limbs, and one targeted each wing as well, attempting to slice cleanly through them.

The results were less than stellar. The attacks looked dangerous, and against a normal Silence it surely would have been enough to cut through and cleave the monster in half entirely. Very quickly, though, the members of Little Demons were coming to realize just how sincere Dia’s warning had been. The blades swung down through the air and they crashed against the different parts of the Silence’s body, but before they got deep at all they found themselves stalling out, cutting useless against its thick hide like an actual saw against solid rock. The wounds left behind were visible, but they were minimal. And, more than that, they only seemed to have succeeded in pissing the monster off even more.

The Silence roared once again, lashing out even more strongly this time, whipping its head and its tail back and forth while beginning to thrash with each of its limbs, and it very quickly became apparent this was too much for Yoshiko to handle. “Dammit!” she muttered out, more and more of the arms breaking away until the Silence finally managed to pry itself free entirely, leaving the remains of Yoshiko’s attack to vanish back into the ether.

“What’s going on?” Dia’s voice cut into Ruby’s ear. “Is everything alright?”

“Our attacks aren’t doing anything,” Ruby said, diving for cover behind an upturned car as she tried to plan her next move. Yoshiko and Hanamaru were running for safety now alongside Maki, which proved to be a wise decision; the Silence’s mouth was already stretching wide, and a moment later a beam of energy was tearing through the spot where they had been standing.

“This is what I was worried about. You’re not equipped to fight a creature of this strength,” Dia muttered, and Ruby could hear the concern behind her sister’s voice. Her brow creased down, and she wanted to protest, but suddenly she was coming to realize that maybe Dia had been correct: maybe she had gotten in over her head after all. But it was a little late to start thinking that now.

“There has to be something we can do, right?” Ruby insisted, peering over the top of the car as Maki launched another volley of clones against the monster’s body, only to watch them crash and disappear uselessly against its hide. If not even Maki could manage to do damage, Ruby was starting to feel especially concerned, but she refused to just give up.

“I’m thinking,” Dia replied, and though Ruby couldn’t see it, she could imagine the look of concentration that must have been etched across her face at the moment. A few seconds passed, Ruby’s stomach twisting during each of them, before she heard Dia speak up again. “Alright. I might have an idea.”

“What is it?” Ruby blurted out, eager for anything that might successfully give them a leg up over this monster.

“Do you remember…” Dia asked, voice trailing off for a moment, before she spoke up again, tone softer now. “Do you remember that technique you showed me recently? In my office?” It took Ruby a moment to remember what Dia was even talking about, though after a second her mind flashed back to one of the last conversations she’d had with Dia before their falling out, and she nodded.

“I do,” she replied. “Do you think…?”

“You said you were still working on weaponizing it, but if you can manage to do so… It’s pure energy. If you can concentrate it strongly enough, and focus it all in the right direction, it might be enough to do real damage.”

“Okay,” Ruby replied, resolve solidifying now that she actually had some sense of what to do next. “I can manage that.” There was another pause there, and then Dia spoke up again, her voice soft once more.

“Are you sure you can manage this?” she asked. “You said you were still working on perfecting it, and-”

“I can handle it,” Ruby promised, speaking with, perhaps, more confidence than she actually deserved. Now wasn’t the time to start second-guessing herself, though. It was do or die, and there was no place in her mind for doubts.

“Okay,” Dia replied, and even though Ruby could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced, it meant the world just to hear that Dia was trying to trust in her. “Then… I believe in you.”

“I won’t let you down.” Ruby took a single, deep breath after she said that, and then she rose back up from behind the car, peering over the top of it towards where the Silence was still rampaging through the street. Yoshiko and Hanamaru remained bunkered down behind cover as well, and right now Maki appeared to have the monster’s attention, retreating backwards down the street and sending out more of her mirages to keep the beast distracted. That was good for Ruby.

She vaulted over the back of the car and landed on the broken remains of the street, immediately sprinting forward to close the distance between herself and the Silence. Already she was stretching her arms out in front of her, trying to summon as much strength as she could, feeling the energy start to course through her arms. She had no doubt that, if she wanted this to work, it was going to take every last bit of strength she had.

Even as Ruby approached the Silence it didn’t appear to notice her, still focused on Maki, which Ruby was extremely thankful for. Dia didn’t need to know as much, but Ruby really had been overstating her confidence. She had still been fiddling with the technique she had shown Dia, and had still been working on perfecting it and refining it to the point that it was useful in combat. Now, she supposed, was as good a time to figure that out as any.

“Corundum Prism!” Ruby shouted, clapping her hands together in front of her in a diamond shape once she had finally gotten close enough to the Silence. The air flickered a few feet in front of her, and then a crystalline prism flickered into view, the same as the one she had summoned in Dia’s office so many weeks ago. It was a little more well-defined now, sharper around the edges, deeper red in color, and that alone was enough to make Ruby hope she had improved the technique enough for this to be successful.

The sunlight caught the crystal instantly, and immediately faint beams of multicolored light spread out from the gem’s various facets, shining across the street and the surrounding buildings, a few of them shining directly on the Silence’s body as well. That finally seemed to be enough to catch the monster’s attention, causing it to stop and slowly turn its head back over its shoulder to look towards Ruby, though this alone didn’t appear to be enough to do actual damage yet. The beams were weak, and she knew she was going to need to put a lot more strength into this attack than she currently was if she wanted it to have an impact.

Ruby’s arms were already tingling with the energy she was pouring into them, and that tingling grew even stronger as she tried to increase the strength of her attack even further. The beams immediately got brighter, and stronger- too strong, Ruby realized. The Silence recoiled and roared as a few of the beams caught its skin, apparently doing some amount of damage, but Ruby very quickly noticed that the damage wasn’t being contained. The different rays of light were shining off in every direction, and as they grew stronger she heard a window shatter, noticed a splintered tree catching fire out of the corner of her vision. The streets and buildings around her had already been badly damaged during the fight, but she didn’t need to make that worse.

Scrambling, Ruby quickly tried to adjust the form of the prism, twisting and morphing the various crystal faces, changing their angles, causing the beams of light to swipe across the landscape as she did so. It was messy and chaotic, and Ruby cursed herself as one of the beams slashed across a car and cut through its metal, as another sliced a traffic light clean in half and sent it crashing to the ground. One by one, though, she got the beams to focus inward, all converging on a single point, bearing down onto the Silence’s body harder and harder with each passing moment.

The Silence didn’t like this, of course. It roared loudly again, and then it pivoted sharply, swinging a hundred-eighty degrees and swiping its tail behind itself as it spun. Ruby could see the monster’s body slowly burning away where the light was striking it, but it still wasn’t enough. It was just a small dent in the monster’s armor, and she needed more. She wasn’t going to have much time, though. With Ruby in its sights the Silence had started to charge, and at the pace it was going, it wasn’t going to take long to close the gap between them.

“Ruby? What’s happening? Are you alright?” she heard Dia saying in her ear, but Ruby couldn’t break her concentration long enough to respond. She was already close to her limit, but that wasn’t enough. Dia would chastise her for pushing herself too far later, she knew it. But right now she didn’t have a choice.

Ruby took a deep breath as she tried to summon up whatever reserves of strength she had left, pouring everything she could, everything that she was into this one attack. As she funneled the last of her energy into the prism the beam grew brighter, so bright that it hurt to look at, though Ruby quickly realized that wasn’t the only reason her vision was blurring. Her head was swimming, her limbs were going numb, her lungs were empty. But it was _working_. As the beam from her prism got brighter, more intense, the Silence reeled backwards, pushed back in its tracks by the intensity, and Ruby could see, even through her clouded vision, more of its body burning away. She only hoped it faded faster than she did.

A few more seconds were all she could manage, and Ruby didn’t know what she would do if this failed. Her arms shook, causing the crystal in front of her to grow unstable. Cracks were forming along its surface, cracks that Ruby could only just barely make out. They were growing larger, though, despite her attempts to fight them back, and the beam of light was faltering as a result. Clenching her teeth together so tightly they felt like they were going to shatter Ruby tried, desperately, to stabilize it, but there wasn’t anything she could do at this point. The cracks grew larger and larger, cascading, spiraling out of control, until the crystal was finally at its limit, and it exploded completely.

The light was blinding, and Ruby was thrown backwards by the force, ripped from the ground and sent flying through the air. She flew for several seconds until she crashed against the wall of a nearby building, and suddenly all the numbness that had been going through her body a moment before was gone, replaced by the aching pain. After hitting the wall Ruby fell forward to her hands and knees, ignoring the scrapes and abrasions across them as she landed. She tried to scramble back to her feet as quickly as she could, ready to survey the scene in front of her, prepared for the worst. As she blinked her eyes open again, though, and looked down towards the street in front of her, she was shocked by what she saw.

The Silence had collapsed in the middle of the road- what remained of it, at least. From the looks of it the creature’s front half had been blown clean off in the explosion, and now all that remained were the hind legs and tail, which were already disappearing into nothingness as well. For a few seconds Ruby just stood there, stunned, unable to believe what she was looking at, before she heard Dia’s voice in her ear again.

“Ruby! Ruby, what’s going on?? Are you okay?? Answer me!”

“Yeah,” Ruby replied, voice breathless, shock still preventing her from truly processing all that had just happened. Somewhere in the back of all of it, though, she could feel an intense, overwhelming sense of relief. “I’m okay.”

* * *

**12:26 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Katsushika, Tokyo**

For a few seconds after Kotori appeared, the scene was still and tense. The Silence was still reeling backwards, recovering from having its own attack flung back in its face, and Kotori was still standing there with her wings outstretched, while Honoka and Umi stayed down on the ground, staring up at their savior. A second or two passed, before Umi broke the silence by finally speaking up.

“Kotori…” she said. “What- What are you doing here?” Kotori looked back over her shoulder when she heard the question, and for a brief moment her expression was gravely serious, before she managed to put a smile on her face. Umi knew her well enough to know it was fake.

“I’m saving you,” she replied. “You looked like you could use some help.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to be out here?” Honoka blurted out. “I mean- You haven’t done this sort of thing in years! Are you sure you’re not out of shape?”

“I’ve been handling myself so far, haven’t I?” Kotori replied, and neither Honoka nor Umi could argue with that. “Are you too injured to fight, Umi-chan?”

“I don’t think so,” Umi replied. “I-” The moment she tried to prove that she was still in good enough condition to keep going, though, she quickly undermined her own point. The simple act of trying to push herself up into anything past a sitting position caused pain to surge through her, and she nearly went back down to the ground just as quickly.

“Don’t push yourself, Umi-chan!” Honoka insisted. “Kotori-chan and I can take care of this! Just leave it to us!”

“It’s kind of nostalgic, isn’t it?” Kotori asked, turning her eyes back out towards the Silence, which finally seemed to be recovering from the blast. “Just like old times.”

“Yeah!” Honoka agreed, finally pulling away from Umi to stand up herself, stepping forward to come up alongside Kotori. “Just like old times!”

“This is a lot more dangerous than old times,” Umi protested. “You’re sure you can handle this?”

“Only one way to find out,” Kotori replied. “Do you still know all your same tricks, Honoka-chan?”

“Do I ever!” Honoka replied. “Watch this!” And then, just after she said that, a little point of orange light appeared at the center of her back, quickly spreading out in both directions and unfurling into a pair of wings that matched Kotori’s own. At the same time an orange-hued replica of Umi’s bow appeared in her grip, leaving her standing there with the better part of both of her oldest friends.

“Impressive,” Kotori giggled. “I’ll try to keep its attention, then. You get around back and try to get off as many shots as you can.”

“You got it!” Honoka replied, before splitting off to the side, wings stretching out behind her as she arched her way up into the sky and around the beast. At the same time Kotori quickly made sure she was keeping its focus by swinging one of her wings forward, hurling off another few feathers directly towards the Silence. The feathers crashed against its skin and exploded, and while they didn’t seem like they had done any sincere damage, they were at least enough to get the monster’s attention, and to keep it focused on Kotori.

The Silence gnashed its jaws and lunged forward, and Kotori immediately flew off from the ground as well, staying just a few feet above the street while she started to fly in the opposite direction from Honoka. So far it seemed that her plan was working, and the Silence appeared determined to chase after her, its four massive legs carrying it down the street at a truly terrifying speed.

Behind the Silence, meanwhile, Honoka now had free reign to start firing off her own attacks. She came up over the Silence, wings stretching out while she drew her bow back, and at the same time an arrow left her bow a dozen feathers left her wings, all of them soaring down towards the Silence at once. Kotori matched that as well, hurling more feathers from her wings and sending them crashing against its body, wanting to keep its attention on her- or, at the least, to give it the difficult choice of deciding which one of them to chase after. As long as its attention wasn’t on Umi, that was really all that mattered.

So far the ploy seemed to be working. The Silence roared out as Honoka’s attacks hit it, and it had just started to pivot to face her when Kotori’s feathers struck it from the other direction, leaving it whipping back around just as quickly. Honoka seized the opportunity, firing off even more arrows and feathers while it turned back around, and Kotori followed suit, not wanting to let up for a single moment, especially now that they had an opening.

In the back of her mind, though, Kotori knew this wasn’t enough. They might have been keeping the Silence distracted and irritated, but that was all they were doing. These attacks were jerking it around, angering and harassing it, but they were hardly doing any real damage. The feathers and the arrows alike were crashing against the Silence’s body and exploding without leaving any mark at all, which wasn’t going to do anything for them. If things kept up at this rate Kotori knew that, sooner or later, either they were going to get tired out, or the Silence was. Somehow, she didn’t favor their odds in that matchup.

Knowing she needed to do something was much different from knowing _what_ she needed to do, though. Kotori racked her mind as she tried to figure out a next step, but coming up with a plan for this situation already would have been hard enough under normal circumstances. When she was doing that on top of trying to outrun a monster, while also continuously attacking it, it only got even harder.

As their game of cat and mouse raged on Kotori looked towards Honoka, still close on the Silence’s tail, still bearing her wings and her bow and firing off an endless volley of attacks, and she couldn’t help but wish that they had someone else here with them as well, someone that would give Honoka something more useful to do. Honoka could imitate anyone’s magic, but only if that magic was already present. If someone like Nozomi or Eli were here then Honoka could emulate them, and that would be a tremendous help. But instead, it was just the three of them. Just Honoka, here with Kotori, and Umi, and-

And that was when Kotori started to get an idea.

It was a crazy idea, she realized, and she didn’t know if it was going to work. She had a feeling it wasn’t. But it was worth a try, right? Anything was better than charging forward with the same useless strategy they were employing now.

“Honoka!” Kotori shouted out. “Tell it to stop!”

“Huh??” Honoka shouted back. “What are you talking about?”

“The Silence!” Kotori repeated, in between swings of her wings and volleys of feathers. “Tell it to stop!”

“I hate to tell you this, Kotori-chan, but I don’t think it’s gonna listen to me!”

“Trust me!” Kotori insisted. “Just do it!”

“A-Alright!” Honoka said, seeming entirely unsure of herself. She took a deep breath, and Kotori could see her face strengthen up into a picture of her resolve, before she shouted down towards the monster. “Stop!”

Nothing happened, of course. The Silence didn’t even seem to take notice, still charging forward towards Kotori just as viciously as before. But Kotori wasn’t discouraged yet.

“Don’t just say it!” she shouted up at Honoka. “Mean it! Really want it to stop!”

“Obviously I want it to stop!” Honoka shouted back.

“Then make sure it feels that! Will it!” Honoka still looked confused by Kotori’s words, but Kotori had faith in this plan, more than she should have. And Honoka, fortunately, seemed willing to take Kotori’s confidence at its worth. From where she was, just above the street, Kotori could see Honoka scrunching her face up once more, looking even more determined than she had the last time. She twisted her mouth up, puffed her cheeks out, creased her brow down, and took a deep, long breath, before shouting at the top of her lungs.

“STOOOOOOOP!” And this time, it actually worked.

It was unnerving, almost, how quickly the Silence came to a halt. It had been charging forward at full speed one moment, chasing Kotori down with every intention to tear into her and kill her. And then, the next moment, it was just frozen in place, looking completely peaceful and docile. It stood there in the middle of the road like a domesticated animal, and it was almost easy to forget how threatening it had looked just a moment before.

“Holy shit!” Kotori heard Honoka shout from above, and Kotori herself just kept staring at the Silence, waiting for the effect to break at any moment. So far, though, it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. Slowly, Kotori let herself drop back down to the ground, and Honoka did the same, though from much farther above. Throughout the chase Kotori and Honoka had ended up several blocks from where they had left Umi, and they would have to go back and make sure she was alright soon. Right now, though, Kotori was still more focused on cautiously approaching the Silence, while Honoka ran towards her from the other direction.

“What just happened??” Honoka asked, sounding as excited as she was confused. “How did you know that would work??”

“You can copy any magic that’s around you, right?” Kotori asked, and Honoka nodded back eagerly in response.

“Well, yeah! But what’s that have to do with this?”

“I don’t know exactly how Tsubasa is controlling these Silence,” Kotori said, walking up close enough to place a hand against the monster’s leg, finding that it didn’t react in the slightest as she did so. “But however she’s doing it… I figured it had to be a magic of some sort.” When Kotori said that Honoka’s expression remained blank for a few more seconds, and Kotori could practically see the gears turning inside her mind, before she finally pieced it together.

“Holy SHIT!” she blurted out. “I can control these things??” And Kotori couldn’t stop herself from giggling a little bit at just how excited Honoka sounded by that.

“For right now, at least,” she replied. “But hopefully, that won’t be the case for much longer.” And then, as soon as she’d said that, Kotori’s wings spread out once again, and she jumped up into the air, landing on top of the Silence’s back. She walked a few steps forward along its spine, keeping her footing delicate, and she looked towards the sky for just a moment before turning her attention back to Honoka. “Take me up, will you?”

“You want me to make it fly?” Honoka asked.

“Do you think you can?”

“Well, I can give it a shot…” Honoka closed her eyes after that, scrunching her face into an expression of determination that Kotori probably would have found endearing, were it not for everything else on her mind. And then, after a moment, Honoka pointed up towards the sky, shouting out without ever opening her eyes. “FLY!”

The command worked instantly, and Kotori suddenly saw the Silence’s wings stretching out on either side of her before, just a moment later, they slammed downward and launched the entire beast into the sky. Kotori had to crouch down and grab onto one of the spines running along the monster’s back just to keep herself from being thrown loose, but she managed to keep hold, clinging tightly as the monster rose higher and higher into the sky.

The Silence flew up, far up, until it was well above any of the buildings that surrounded it. Up above Kotori could still see rifts dotting the sky, not just here, but all across Tokyo, as lesser Silence continued to spill out into the other parts of the city. Right now, though, she didn’t care about any of that. Right now, there was only one thing on her mind.

The Silence finally came to a stop once it was already several hundred feet off the ground, wings now stretching out and flapping just enough to keep it suspended in the sky, though it didn’t raise itself up any higher. Kotori allowed herself to stand back up straight at that point, her own wings still stretched out behind her as well, and then she looked up towards the sky and the rifts littering it, clearing her throat once and taking a deep breath before she spoke.

“Tsubasa!” she shouted. “I know you’re watching this, from wherever you are! Your invasion’s failed! We’ve taken one of your monsters as a pet, and the others are being defeated as I speak! You’ve lost! Now come down and show yourself!” she demanded. 

After Kotori spoke there was a long, drawn out moment of stillness, and during that time she didn’t know whether what she’d said was going to work- she didn’t even know if Tsubasa _was_ watching, if she was being honest. It was just an assumption she’d made, hoping it was right. But, after a few more seconds, it appeared that it was.

A thin, dark line suddenly appeared above Kotori, stretching horizontally across the sky. That line quickly spread out in either direction, opening up into a rift that gave Kotori another brief glimpse of the world beyond. And then, just after the rift had opened, Kotori’s heart stopped when she saw the exact thing she’d wanted: Tsubasa.

Tusbasa didn’t come alone, of course. She was flanked on either side by the other two members of A-RISE, all three of them descending down from their rift in perfect unison. It was an intimidating sight, but Kotori didn’t let herself be afraid. She stood her ground on the back of the Silence, determination only growing stronger now that she realized that, after five long years, Tsubasa was finally within her reach again.

“I have to admit, I’m impressed,” Tsubasa said, coming down further and further from the rift, until she was only about ten feet away from Kotori, floating there in the middle of the sky. “You’ve all held out against these attacks far better than I thought you would.”

“You underestimated us,” Kotori replied. “You underestimated this city.”

“Maybe so,” Tsubasa agreed. “And now you’ve come to finish things off yourself, is that it? I suppose I always should have figured things would end this way,” she laughed. “Spurned lovers, facing off in a star-crossed battle for the fate of the entire world. It’s almost poetic, really.”

“No,” Kotori replied, and Tsubasa almost looked startled to hear that. “I’m not going to fight you. You’ve lost,” she said, gesturing out across the city. “It’s over. Just give up. Come back peacefully.” For a fleeting moment after she said that Tusbasa didn’t respond, and Kotori almost thought she could see some hint of recognition in her eyes. Only for a moment, though, before it was replaced with the most shrill, mocking, stomach-twisting laughter Kotori had ever heard.

“Oh, Kotori,” Tsubasa taunted. “You always were the sweet, naive, idealistic one. You thought the world was such a beautiful place, the sort of world _worth_ saving, and you were always _so_ sure everything would work out for the better. You think this is the end?” she asked, eyes suddenly going wide as she raised a hand, pointing two fingers directly towards Kotori. “ _Au contraire_ , my love. This is only just the beginning.”


	15. Finale

**12:41 pm, May 10th, 2030  
** **Katsushika, Tokyo**

Kotori barely had time to move before a bolt of magic tore through the air towards her. One moment Tsubasa was aiming her fingers, and the next she was shooting out a blast of energy that Kotori almost couldn’t avoid. She lunged to the side, wings spreading to keep her in the air, while Tsubasa’s attack ripped through the spot she had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. It tore into the back of the Silence she had been standing atop as well, sending it plummeting towards the ground and fading from their world, but that was the least of Kotori’s worries at the moment.

“Tsubasa!” Kotori shouted, still believing, still _needing_ to believe there was some way she could get through to her. “Stop this! Look what you’re doing!”

“Oh, I’m well aware of what I’m doing. If anything, you’re the one who should be looking at the situation you’ve gotten yourself into,” Tsubasa replied, gesturing towards Anju to her right, Erena to her left. “You’ve gone and gotten yourself outnumbered again.”

“You’re letting us play, too, Tsubasa-chan?” Anju giggled.

“But of course,” Tsubasa replied. “I think you’ve earned it.” Anju looked delighted by that, and this, Kotori realized, could be a problem. Scratch that, it _was_ a problem, and a problem that was quickly growing worse.

“Let’s make sure you’re not going anywhere!” Anju said, tossing her hands up in front of her, and sure enough Kotori didn’t have a chance to flee before she watched the air shimmer and morph on all sides of her. Looking up and to either side she realized she was suddenly trapped at the center of a cube of Anju’s barriers, rendered little more than a sitting duck. Kotori knew she had to escape, _now_ , but knowing that was a fair bit different from doing it. She wrapped her wings tightly around her body, coiling them in like armor before slamming herself against one of the walls as hard as she could, and though the barrier shimmered as she struck it, it didn’t break.

“Look at that,” Erena commented. “Like a helpless animal caught in a trap.”

“It almost makes you feel sorry for her, doesn’t it?” Tsubasa agreed, before raising her fingers up and pointing them towards Kotori once more. “But only almost.” Just before she had the chance to pull the trigger, though, another voice was calling through the air towards them.

“I’m getting real sick of the three of you!” it shouted, and a moment later a searing blast of magical energy, shockingly similar to Tsubasa’s own, came tearing through the air. Tsubasa recoiled backwards to get out of the way, her own attack momentarily halted, and before she even looked towards the source of the noise Kotori knew exactly what she would find: Honoka, rising up into the air alongside her, wearing a look of absolute fury on her face.

“Funny,” Tsubasa replied, her own brows creasing down as Honoka interrupted them. “I’m starting to feel the same way about you.”

“Stand back, Kotori-chan,” Honoka said, before raising an arm to the side, pointing two fingers towards the barrier cube in a perfect recreation of Tsubasa's signature pose. It only took Kotori a moment to realize what Honoka intended to do, and she quickly pressed herself as far back against the opposite wall as she could, before another blast of energy shot from Honoka’s fingers. This one was smaller, thankfully, more contained, but it was still enough to get the job done, shattering the barrier like glass and freeing Kotori from her prison.

“Oh, boo-hoo,” Anju huffed, pouting at Honoka. “It’s not nice of you to break my toys like that.”

“It’s not nice of you to hurt my friends, either,” Honoka replied.

“With all due respect,” Tsubasa chided, staring down at Honoka with narrowed eyes, “this doesn’t really concern you. Deal with her, will you?” she asked, glancing between her two companions.

“With pleasure!” Anju replied, swinging her arms down, and this time Honoka didn’t have a chance to see the attack coming. A barrier appeared overhead, out of her vision, before it came slamming down on top of her, knocking the wind out of her and sending her plummeting towards the ground.

Honoka fell for a few seconds, dazed and disoriented, fighting to regain her senses through the pain. Her vision had blurred for a moment from that impact, but she forced her eyes to focus again just in time to realize how close she was coming to the pavement below, and she managed to yank herself back up and keep from crashing at the last moment. Looking back towards the sky she saw Erena and Anju both descending after her as well, and, several hundred feet beyond them now, Kotori and Tsubasa, still locked in their own battle up in the sky. Somehow, Honoka didn’t think Anju and Erena had any intention of letting her get back up there. Hopefully Kotori would be able to hold her own until Honoka could deal with this.

“Sorry to be so rough with you!” Anju called out, eventually coming down to float in the air about ten feet from where Honoka was, just a few feet off the ground below. “But you seem like the sort who can handle it!”

“Yeah, well, you’re still not forgiven!” Honoka called back. Her eyes narrowed, glancing back and forth between Anju and Erena, trying to formulate her strategy. At least, with Tsubasa out of the picture, their offensive capabilities were severely hindered, and there was only so much damage they could do with Anju’s barriers and Erena’s chains. Still, Honoka knew that to let her guard down because of that would be foolish. There was a reason A-RISE had been the best of the best for so long. They could be incredibly resourceful, and incredibly _dangerous_.

“If it’s any consolation, we’ll be sure to make this quick,” Erena replied, before, sure enough, a series of chains came flying out from where she was standing, snaking through the air and flying towards Honoka. Honoka’s eyes darted sideways towards Anju, and then she threw her hands up in front of her, summoning a perfect facsimile of one of Anju’s own barriers to deflect Erena’s attack.

“Hey, that’s no fair!” Anju huffed. “That’s my move!”

“Yeah, well, I do it better!” Honoka called back. To prove her point, the moment Erena’s chains were successfully disarmed, Honoka twisted her arms around and flipped the barrier onto its side, before flinging it through the air like a razor blade, sending it right towards where Anju was standing. Anju gasped, ducking out of the way just before the barrier would have struck her, and instead it went slicing into the building behind her, cutting into glass and concrete alike. In fairness, Honoka hadn’t come up with that idea on her own. She’d seen Anju use moves like that in the past, watching videos of A-RISE’s old fights. Still, she could tell from the look on Anju’s face that she hadn’t expected her to know tricks like that.

“You know, you’re really starting to annoy me,” Anju said, speaking through a cutesy, strained smile. “So hurry up and die now, mkay?” After saying that Honoka saw barriers appear on either side of her, and she knew where this was going as well. Sure enough, just a moment after the walls appeared they started to push inward, threatening to crush her between them. Honoka tried to lunge forward, and normally it would have been easy enough to avoid the attack. But the moment she started to move she suddenly felt something yanking at her ankle, and she looked down to see one of Erena’s chains coming up from the ground, rooting her in place. That was bad.

Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to dodge, Honoka barely had time to throw her hands to either side, summoning another set of barriers to intercept Anju’s own. The two sets of walls crashed against each other, momentarily stopping Anju’s from crushing her, but that still didn’t mean she was in the clear just yet. She could still feel the walls trying to push in from either side, and it was taking most of her concentration to keep her own barriers up. And that was just to keep herself from being crushed. That was still to say nothing of actually escaping.

“You know you can’t take both of us on at once,” Erena chided, before another chain wrapped around from behind Honoka, this one coiling around her neck. It immediately wrapped itself tight and then yanked backwards, digging into Honoka’s skin and cutting off her airway, nearly breaking her concentration in the process. “Just give up and die already. It will be so much less painful for you.” And loathe as she was to admit it, Honoka had to realize that maybe Erena was right: she didn’t know how she was going to get out of this.

If she tried to move or let her concentration lapse for even a second, her barriers would break, and she would be crushed. If she did nothing, Erena’s chains would strangle her- already, Honoka’s vision was blurring as her air was cut off, and the longer this lasted the worse it was going to get. Her eyes frantically darted up and down the street, looking for any sign of something she could use to her advantage, frantically searching for a plan- not that plans had ever been her strong suit. But finally, an idea started to form in her mind. A stupid idea, but an idea all the same.

Honoka stared down the street towards Erena and Anju, though really, she wasn't actually looking at either of them. Instead she was focused on the space just in front of her, where the air started to shimmer while another replica of one of Anju’s barriers faded into view. Through it she could see both Erena and Anju staring at her with confused expressions, clearly trying to prepare themselves for whatever she was about to do. But what they both apparently failed to realize was that neither of them were actually her target. Instead, the moment her barrier was fully materialized, Honoka pulled it towards herself, sending it rocketing through the air and slamming into her own body. _Hard_.

Erena and Anju’s confusion only grew as Honoka smashed a wall into herself as hard as she physically could, and Honoka felt like the impact had damn near shattered every bone in her body, but it _worked_. She knew she would never be able to break loose from the chains around her ankles on her own, but this force was enough to send her flying back through the air, ripping her free from the chains in the process. Her other barriers shattered, and Anju’s went smashing together, but now they found only empty air. As Honoka went tumbling backwards down the street, still reeling from the force of her own attack, she was knocked in the direction the chain around her neck had come from, and that was enough to put a little bit of slack into it as well, at least enough that she was able to breathe again. As she crashed back to the pavement a dozen feet from where she had been standing Honoka slipped her fingers underneath the chain, just barely able to fit them under, and a few more chains of her own stretched out from her hands, wrapping around the noose around her neck. They yanked against it, and while Honoka’s bare hands wouldn’t have been able to get the job done, this seemed to be enough to shatter the links of Erena’s attack and finally break her free.

“So that’s your brilliant plan, is it?” Honoka heard Erena call out, voice laced with mockery. “Beat yourself up for us? When I told you to hurry up and die I didn’t expect you to _actually_ do it.”

“Laugh all you want!” Honoka shouted back, scrambling to get to her feet again. “I’m not finished with you yet!” Confident as she might have been trying to sound, though, she was still disoriented from the blow, and beyond that, she knew she was at a disadvantage here. She’d only opened up a narrow window of opportunity, and she needed to take advantage of it for all it was worth.

Stretching her hand out in front of her, chains shot from Honoka’s arm, winding down the street towards Erena and Anju. They both looked ready to dodge, though in another moment they also seemed to realize they weren’t actually the targets of the attack. Instead the chains shot well past them, until they smashed into the side of a building thirty feet beyond and latched on there. And then Honoka yanked on her own end of the chains and, like a grappling hook, they started to rip her off the ground and through the air towards her opponents.

Erena tsked in irritation as Honoka flew towards them, and then she raised a hand to shoot off a volley of chains of her own, but Honoka was ready for that. She raised her free hand in front of her, where a small, shimmering, circular disc had appeared- one of Anju’s barriers, fashioned into a makeshift shield. The shield caught Erena’s attack, causing the chains to clatter off and fall to the ground uselessly, and while they jarred Honoka, they didn’t stop her.

“Not bad, but mine are still better!” Honoka heard Anju call out before, raising her hands up, Anju summoned a massive wall between them- which Honoka was headed straight for. She was mere seconds away from slamming into it at full speed, but once again, Honoka was prepared. With her shield having served its function Honoka flipped it onto its side, holding it horizontal, and then she threw it out in front of her. The shield spun as it soared through the air, arcing out like a saw blade and slashing into Anju’s barrier. Magical sparks flew up into the air as the two connected, vibrant and blinding, but it ended just as Honoka had hoped. Honoka might have been a bit overconfident when she’d said her barriers were stronger than Anju’s, but Anju hadn’t been right when she’d said her own were stronger either. They were perfectly, evenly matched. And when they were evenly matched, both Honoka’s barrier and Anju’s barrier shattered on contact. But that was more of a problem for Anju than it was for Honoka herself.

With nothing else left between them Honoka released her chain as she came up on Erena and Anju, soaring through the air the last couple of feet towards them. They were both staring up at her in shock, and she could tell they hadn’t expected her to actually make it this far. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel some sense of pride in that.

“This is what you get for underestimating me!” she shouted. And then, raising her hands over her head Honoka summoned up two final barriers, each of them about ten feet wide and equally long, before swinging them down like boards, and smashing them over her opponent’s heads.

Erena and Anju didn’t have anywhere to run to, especially against an attack so wide, and they could do little but crumble underneath its weight. They were slammed down into the ground, driven into it, and the ground itself shattered underneath the force as well, pavement cracking and crumbling until Honoka’s barrier’s finally shattered as well, leaving two small craters in their wake. And at the center of each of those craters was a member of A-RISE, face down in the rubble, unmoving and utterly defeated.

Honoka stumbled forward as she finally landed back on the ground, out of breath, limbs heavy, barely able to keep herself standing. She twisted around the moment she landed, eyes darting back and forth between Erena and Anju, waiting for either of them to stand back up at any moment. But, after a few seconds passed without any sign of movement from either of them, it seemed she had done it: they were down and out, and Honoka herself was left standing.

“Standing” was a strong word, of course. She was only barely managing to stay on her feet, and there was no doubt in her mind that she didn’t have anything left in the tank at this point. She looked up towards the sky, where Kotori and Tsubasa were still locked in battle, and while she desperately wanted to rush up there and help, she could barely even keep from collapsing, let alone fly up there and make herself useful. Right now, all she could do was hope.

“Come on, Kotori-chan,” she whispered under her heavy, ragged breath. “You can do this.”

Up above, Kotori had her work cut out for her. Tsubasa was strong, and if Kotori had been hoping there was still some sentimental part of her that would cause her to hold back, it wasn’t showing through. Kotori had been spending all of her time ducking and weaving through Tsubasa’s relentless onslaught, all while refusing to return fire herself, but by now she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep that up.

“Enough of this!” Kotori shouted, another of Tsubasa’s shots narrowly grazing past her as she spoke. “I told you, I’m not going to fight you!”

“Then sit still and die already,” Tsubasa replied. “You’re only wasting my time.” After she said that Tsubasa raised both of her hands over her head, crossing her wrists over each other like a dancer, before swinging both arms down in a wide arc on either side of her. Kotori watched with slowly building dread as, following the path of her hands, a dozen bolts of energy formed in the air on either side of her, identical to the ones she normally shot like bullets. They hung in the air around Tsubasa for a moment before, with a flick of her wrists, they were all sent hurtling towards Kotori.

Kotori knew she couldn’t avoid that many attacks at once. Her only hope was to take it on and try to stay standing instead, and she just barely had a chance to wrap her wings around in front of her like a shield before the bolts came slamming into her. Some twenty-odd bolts smashed against her wings and exploded all at once, jarring Kotori’s body and sending her hurtling through the air. Her wings shielded her from most of the damage, at least, but it didn’t stop her from nearly being blown out of the sky, soaring backwards until she came crashing down against the roof of one of the nearby buildings. And even then she went skidding and tumbling across the length of it, barely managing to regain her footing and drag herself to a stop before she went falling right back off the other end.

Righting herself and looking up Kotori saw Tsubasa at the far end of the building, slowly descending from up above until her own feet touched down on the roof as well, and she started to walk forward. She still looked completely unshaken, just as confident as ever- a weaker person would have been exhausted from firing off that many powerful attacks in a row, but Tsubasa had always been strong. And at the moment, given everything she had seen, Kotori had a sickening feeling that Tsubasa was drawing on a power beyond her own as well.

“You just refuse to go down, don’t you?” Tsubasa chided, strolling towards Kotori as she spoke, and Kotori kept herself on guard, prepared to react at a moment’s notice if Tsubasa tried to attack again. “Honestly, I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn.”

“Six years,” Kotori replied. “Six years, I’ve waited until the day I would find you again. And now that you’re here, I’m not letting you slip through my fingers. I’m bringing you back,” she insisted. “No matter what.”

“Bringing me back?” Tusbasa repeated, words punctuated by more shrill laughter. “Bringing me back from _what_? I’m already here. This is what you wanted,” she said, tossing her arms up above her. “A-RISE’s grand return, and the great Tsubasa Kira, taking center stage. It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

“No,” Kotori replied, with enough conviction that it seemed to make Tsubasa’s expression falter. “Because whatever you are… You’re not actually Tsubasa.” Tsubasa’s eyebrows creased down, arms dropping, and a moment passed before she responded.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” Kotori replied. “I don’t know who’s pulling your strings, but I know _someone_ is. And I’ll cut through every last one of them to set you free.”

“Is that what this is about?” Tsubasa asked, rolling her eyes at Kotori’s comments. “You have to wake up from this world of fairytales and make believe, dear. Not everything fits your simple little view of good and evil. Not everything gets to have a happy ending.”

“I know that,” Kotori replied. “I know it’s not that simple. But I’ve… I’ve already given up too much to bring you back. I’m not giving up now. I know the real Tsubasa is still in there, somewhere, and I’m not letting her slip away. Not again.”

“You still don’t get it?” Tsubasa chided. “There is no _real_ Tsubasa. This _is_ the real me.”

“It’s not,” Kotori insisted.

“It is. It always has been. Do you remember what I told you the last time we saw each other before I vanished?” Tsubasa asked. “That I was sick of all this? That I was worn out, exhausted, that I just wanted to give it all up and run away together?”

“You didn’t mean that,” Kotori insisted.

“I did,” Tsubasa replied. “But of course you wouldn’t believe that. You wouldn’t let me. So I ran off and did it without you.”

“That’s not true,” Kotori tried to protest. “That’s not what happened.” But in reality, she didn’t know. She just didn’t want to _believe_ it was what happened.

“It is,” Tsubasa insisted. “I decided it was time to leave this all behind, and so I did, and that was that.”

“And Erena-chan and Anju-chan?” Kotori asked. “They just came along with you? Just like that?” For a moment, as Kotori said that, Tsubasa faltered. She looked surprised, caught off guard, before her expression hardened again and she dismissed the questions with a wave of her hand.

“Something like that,” she replied. “They had their own reasons.”

“Just like you,” Kotori said. “But I don’t believe your reasons. I knew you, Tsubasa. I knew you better than anybody. You loved the world. You loved Tokyo. You loved your fans. You loved all of them way too much to ever want to do something like _this_.”

“ _Loved_ ,” Tsubasa repeated. “Past tense. People change, Kotori. Everyone has their breaking point.”

“And yours was that you were _too_ famous?” Kotori asked. “That people loved you _too_ much?”

“You know it wasn’t that,” Tsubasa snarled back. Her eyebrows creased down, her voice took on an edge, and Kotori could tell she had struck a nerve. This was good. This was what she had been hoping for.

“Then what was?” she pressed. “What made you snap like this?”

“All of it,” Tsubasa replied. “You lived through it too. You should know just as well as I do. The pressure, the attention, it’s _suffocating_.”

“You loved the fame. You loved the attention.”

“For a while!” Tsubasa snapped back. “But then what? Where does it end? It never does!” she insisted. “It’s just one thing after another, and it spirals and spirals, and there’s never any way out from it. It’s _intolerable_ ,” she spat.

“You could have just left,” Kotori replied. “You could have just given up on your career, done something else. You could have become a veterinarian.”

“And it still would have followed me for the rest of my life,” Tsubasa insisted. “You think I could ever truly be free from that? You think I could ever escape the fame? The image? It would follow me everywhere. This,” she said, gesturing to the torn sky and the burning city around her, “this is the only true way out.”

“So that’s what this was?” Kotori replied. “It was cowardice? It was you being too afraid to face your problems? You couldn’t handle them, so you just decided to burn everything down around you instead?” It hurt, to be saying those things. It hurt to call Tsubasa a coward, especially when Kotori knew that deep down Tsubasa, whatever part of her was still in there, was suffering. But right now her words were having the intended effect.

“It’s not cowardice!” Tsubasa snapped back, eyebrows arching down, nostrils flaring out. “Living the rest of my life in that _hell_ would have been cowardice. This was the only thing I could do!”

“It wasn’t,” Kotori replied, trying to keep her own voice level. “You just weren’t ready to face your fears, so you ran away. You’re lashing out like a scared little kid.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Tsubasa seethed. “Of course you would never face this problem yourself! You were nothing compared to me!” Hearing that stung, of course it did. But Kotori just had to remind herself that it wasn’t really Tsubasa saying these things to her. They were just empty words.

“Maybe I wasn’t,” she agreed. “But I was happy with where I was. I liked my job, and I was surrounded by friends. Meanwhile you were all alone at the top, weren’t you?”

“Shut up!” Tsubasa snapped back.

“Seeing Erena and Anju like this is telling,” Kotori went on. “They were never really your friends, were they? They were just a couple of mindless sidekicks following you around wherever you went, kissing up to you and living in your shadow.”

“I said shut up!”

“Even I only started dating you after you were famous. Did that ever bother you? Wondering whether I actually loved you, or whether I was just trying to ride your coattails to the top?”

“SHUT! UP!” Tsubasa finally seemed to break when she heard that, and in a split second she was swinging her hand down, hurling a tremendous bolt of energy across the rooftop towards Kotori. Kotori only had a fraction of a second to get her wings up again, and even then the blast was still strong enough to send her reeling backwards, nearly knocking her off the edge of the roof once more. She managed to hold her ground, though, and when she looked back up she saw Tsubasa doubled over now, clutching her head in her hands. It was hard to tell at this distance, but it looked like she was shaking.

“How can you fucking say that?” she shouted, though she didn’t lift her head to look at Kotori as she spoke. “You were everything to me! You were the only thing I had!”

“And now you have nothing.”

“STOP IT!” Another bolt of energy formed in the air above Tsubasa as she shouted that, and then another alongside it, and another still. But as they materialized, independent of any action or movement of Tsubasa’s body, Kotori got the feeling she wasn’t entirely in control of them anymore. Kotori kept her wings folded in front of her as the bolts shot through the air towards her, and this time she was braced enough that she managed to stand her ground against the impact.

“Look at how pathetic you are!” Kotori shouted, raising her voice enough to make sure she would be heard. “You couldn’t handle being the hero so you ran off to become the villain instead, and you failed at that too! You’re just as sad and lonely and worthless now as you’ve always been!”

“Shut up shut up SHUT UP!” Tsubasa screeched at the top of her lungs, more bolts forming in the air around her, faster now, more chaotic. Kotori could tell Tsubasa had lost all control of them as they started to rain down on her, crashing against her wings and exploding, each one trying to force her backwards. Kotori's feet stayed firmly on the ground, though, and she even started to push herself forward, despite how difficult each step was.

“You’re a failure! Just give up and accept it!” Tsubasa wasn’t even speaking now, and through a small crack in her wings Kotori could see her doubled over, burying her head in her arms, trembling even more visibly now. The more unhinged Tsubasa became the more frenetic the magic around her became as well, bolts appearing and raining down on Kotori in a near-constant barrage by now, but this was still better. Messy chaos was less deadly than a focused Tsubasa.

Guilt still sat heavy in Kotori’s stomach as she forced herself forward, one slow, labored step at a time, and every word she’d said had stung as they left her mouth. But she just had to keep reminding herself that this wasn’t really Tsubasa, that she hadn’t meant what she had said. That she was doing this for Tsubasa’s- for the _real_ Tsubasa’s- own good.

Every bolt that exploded against Kotori’s wings was still trying to send her flying backwards across the roof, and it was becoming more and more difficult just to stand her ground, let alone to continue moving forward. But she forced herself to do so all the same, one burdened step at a time, wings shaking in front of her with each blast while Kotori exerted all of her strength to make sure they didn’t shatter. Bit by bit she was bringing herself closer to Tsubasa, closing the distance between them, even as the blasts got stronger and the explosions grew deafening around her ears. Her legs burned, her chest was tight, her head ached, but Kotori still didn’t stop. Not until she was a mere foot in front of Tsubasa, and her wings finally swung open.

Wind rushed from Kotori as her wings whipped out on either side of her, enough that any bolts still hanging in the air around Tsubasa were disrupted, at least for the moment, and shattered into nothing, and for a split second there was a moment of stillness. Kotori stood there, staring at Tsubasa, and for the first time in all of this, for the first time since her last conversation with her five years ago, she felt like she was actually _seeing_ her. Tsubasa was still shaking violently, and she was still hunched down, clinging to her own head, fingers tangled into her hair, tugging at it frantically. Her eyes were shut tightly, and Kotori could see tears running down her face, dropping onto the roof below. She looked pitiful like this, and for a moment Kotori’s heart ached for her. And then she balled her hand into a tight fist, and swung it through the air.

Kotori’s fist connected with Tsubasa’s face with a resounding crack, one that echoed across the rooftop, one that stung Kotori’s knuckles and sent a shock all the way up her arm. Tsubasa had never been prepared for it, though, and as the blow connected she was sent reeling away, spinning on her heels like a ragdoll and collapsing to the ground. One hit was all it took: Kotori could already see Tsubasa’s body going limp, falling unconscious as it hit the ground. It felt _too_ easy, almost and for a moment longer Kotori stood there, panting heavily, fist still clenched tightly, waiting for Tsubasa to get back up at any moment. But she didn’t, and a part of Kotori had to wonder if that was simply because she didn’t want to.

For a few more seconds Kotori just stood there, mind not yet quite processing her victory. And then, at the top of her vision, her eyes caught movement, and she looked up towards the sky to see the sight that was taking place all across Tokyo now: one by one, the rifts that had been hanging over the city were closing back up. With Tsubasa unconscious the connection between the worlds had been severed, and now the tears between them were sealing themselves shut. There were still stragglers, surely, some of the Silence that had been summoned still lingering around the city, but they would be easy enough to clean up. For now, Kotori realized, relief washing over her as she dropped to her knees and finally let herself breath for the first time in five years, it was over. For now, they had won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably guess by now the last chapter is going to be something of an epilogue, and if my outline is to be believed then boy howdy is it gonna be a long one. It might take a little while to get it out, so I just wanted to give a heads up about that. In the meantime thanks for your patience, and for sticking with the story this far!


	16. Aftermath

**11:37 am, May 11th, 2030  
** **Tokyo General Hospital (12th Floor), Yoyogi, Tokyo**

Tsubasa laid in her hospital bed, halfway upright, staring at the empty wall in front of her. Being here felt… Strange. She had to imagine this was what it felt like to come out of a coma, though she supposed she should have been thankful that she didn’t actually have a frame of reference for that. It was still bizarre, though, and it felt like now, for the first time in years, she was actually _awake_ again. She had some small sliver of memory of the past five years, but it was distant, hazy, like it had all just been a dream. If only that could have actually been the case.

Tsubasa’s condition was good, all things considered. A little beat up and bruised, and a concussion from being punched unconscious, but that was it. Compared to how things could have gone, compared to how badly she could have gotten hurt, she had to consider herself lucky. And after all she’d done, it was hard to feel like she wouldn’t have deserved it if she _had_ ended up with a few broken bones or ruptured organs.

A knock at Tsubasa’s door pulled her away from those thoughts. “Come in,” she called out, glancing over, expecting to see another one of the doctors or nurses coming through to check on her. Instead, Tsubasa’s heart stopped when the door slid open and she saw Kotori standing on the other side.

For a few seconds they just stared at each other from across the room in silence. Tsubasa laid still in her bed, mouth hanging halfway open, while Kotori stood still in the door, staring back at her. Neither of them spoke, neither of them moved, and Tsubasa didn’t know what to say. She was thankful, then, when Kotori was the first to speak instead.

“I… I wanted to see how you were doing,” she said. Her voice was quiet, nervous, and she was smiling, but Tsubasa could tell the smile was faked. She had a feeling it was more for her benefit than anything else.

“I’ve had better days,” Tsubasa ended up replying. “But… Much worse ones, too. So I suppose I should count my blessings.” A small bit of laughter came from Kotori at that, polite and strained, but laughter all the same, and Tsubasa wanted to think that was a good sign. Kotori walked closer towards Tsubasa’s bed, stepping to the side briefly to pull a chair away from the wall and drag it over with her. As she approached Tsubasa felt a lump forming in her throat while she tried to figure out what she wanted to say- there were a _million_ things she wanted to say, a million things she hadn’t had the chance to say for the past five years, and she didn’t even know where to start. Apologies and pleas for forgiveness, explanations of what she remembered, promises that she still loved Kotori despite all that had happened, they jumbled together in her mind, all fighting for dominance at once.

“Kotori-” she finally started to say, not even sure where the thought was going. But before she had the chance to say anything else Kotori was sitting down beside her bed, holding up a finger to silence her.

“You don’t need to say anything,” Kotori said, and she smiled again, and it managed to feel more genuine this time. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

“Just- Just like that?” Tsubasa replied, and before she knew it she realized she was tearing up from equal parts relief and remorse. “That’s- That’s all you have to say to me? You’re not mad? You’re not upset? You don’t- You don’t hate me?”

“I’ve had a long time to sort through those feelings on my own,” Kotori replied. “And… We’ll have more time to sort through them together later. Right now I just… I just want to appreciate that you’re here.” When Tsubasa heard that, she finally broke down completely. Before she knew it she was sobbing, leaning over and falling into Kotori’s shoulder, and Kotori just reached up and wrapped her arms around her in turn, rubbing her back and quietly consoling her.

Tsubasa hadn’t realized just how much emotion she’d had stored away inside her over the past five years, and now it was all coming out at once. Her sobs were the sort that wracked her entire body, that made her chest so tight she could hardly breathe through them, that left her face a disgusting mess. And as soon as those floodgates had been opened, as soon as one little piece of Tsubasa’s facade had cracked, everything else came following after, until she was letting out tears for every stress and worry and negative thought she’d had for as long as she could remember.

They stayed like that for Tsubasa didn’t even know how long, until her throat started to burn and her eyes felt like they had dried themselves out, like they had no more tears to cry. Only then did she finally pull herself away again, looking back up at Kotori through blurry vision, and Kotori was still just smiling back at her.

“Do you feel better?” she asked.

“A little bit,” Tsubasa replied, voice raspy, forcing herself to laugh softly as she spoke. “I- I’m still so sorry, Kotori. For everything that happened, and for vanishing, and-”

“It’s okay,” Kotori interrupted, shaking her head. “I told you, we’ll have time for this later. I don’t want you to have to worry about it right now.” Another moment of silence passed, and then Tsubasa was pulling her eyes away, biting on the inside of her lip for another second or two before she spoke.

“I can’t just… Not think about it, though,” she insisted. “When I look back on everything that happened, on everything I did, even if it didn’t really feel like _me_ , I can’t just…”

“Can I ask you one thing?” Kotori said, startling Tsubasa slightly. She looked back over, though, and nodded.

“Anything,” she promised.

“When you did disappear… Do you remember what happened?” That felt like a lifetime ago now, and it was difficult for Tsubasa to think back that far, to actually remember those last moments when she had still been herself, back before all of _this_ had happened. And yet, somehow, the memories were still clear. In a way, they still felt more clear than everything that had happened since then.

“I do,” she replied, nodding slowly. “I… I was out on patrol, with Erena and Anju. We were going around as usual, flying over… Flying over Itabashi, I think. And then all of a sudden this, this _rift_ of some sort opened up, but it wasn’t like the normal ones. Nothing came out of it. There were no Silence, nothing like that. Instead it just sort of stretched out and swallowed us up, and that was that. I don’t really remember anything after that.” Tsubasa’s eyes had drifted away as she’d been recounting that, and she ended up staring off at nothing in particular. As she finished she brought her gaze back over to Kotori, and she had expected Kotori to look surprised by what she’d heard, or concerned, or intrigued. Instead, Kotori just looked relieved.

“Then… You didn’t leave because of me?” she asked, and Tsubasa nearly felt her heart break.

“Of course not,” she insisted, shaking her head, reaching out to take one of Kotori’s hands. “How could you even think that? You were everything to me,” she promised. “You were my whole world. I loved you, and I could never just leave you behind like that.” Tusbasa paused for a moment after she said that, her next words getting in caught in her throat. Bashfulness wasn’t a look that suited her, though, so she forced herself to speak again. “Kotori…” she went on. “I know that… I know that it’s been years. I know that your life has surely gone on. I know that you’ve probably changed a lot, and that I probably have too, and that we’re not the same people we were back then, but-” But before Tsubasa had the chance to finish what she was going to say Kotori was reaching a hand out to cup her cheek, and leaning in to kiss her.

Tsubasa’s heart skipped another beat as Kotori kissed her, and for a moment she just stared back in shock, before she slowly relaxed. She let her eyes drift shut and leaned back into the kiss, and for a few long moments they stayed like that, lips pressed against each other, and for that handful of wonderful seconds Tsubasa could put aside every other worry that might have been plaguing her, every fear and every doubt and every bit of regret and remorse, and just let herself believe that no matter what happened, everything was going to be okay.

Kotori pulled away eventually, though not far, resting her forehead against Tsubasa’s and smiling at her gently. “I don’t know what the future is going to be like,” she said, her voice softer now, barely above a whisper. “But I know I never stopped loving you for a single second.”

“I’m- I’m really happy to hear that,” Tsubasa whispered back, and tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes again. She and Kotori stayed like that for a few more seconds, simply savoring the moment together- only to both bolt upright and pull away from each other quickly when another voice came from the door.

“We’re not interrupting anything, are we?” Looking towards the door Tsubasa saw Anju standing there, with Erena right beside her, and her cheeks burned from the embarrassing moment she’d just been caught in the middle of.

“Not at all,” she replied, shaking her head. Kotori glanced back over her shoulder when she saw the other two approaching, and then she looked at Tsubasa again, standing up from her chair.

“I should probably be going anyway,” she said, causing a pout to tug at Tsubasa’s lips.

“Already?” she protested.

“I wanted to go check on Umi-chan and make sure she’s doing alright, too,” Kotori replied. “I’ll make sure to come back in and say goodbye before I leave, okay?”

“Alright,” Tsubasa agreed, though she clearly wasn’t _thrilled_ about it. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kotori replied, smiling down at Tsubasa before she finally stepped away from the bed, turning and walking towards the door. Tsubasa watched her as she left, keeping her eyes on her until she was out into the hall, shutting the door behind her. And the moment Kotori was gone Tsubasa’s expression fell, while her eyes turned back to Erena and Anju.

“I have a feeling you two didn’t just come by to check on me,” she said, and the somber looks she got in response were enough to tell her that she was correct. Anju walked over to the chair Kotori had just left behind and sat down, while Erena grabbed another and pulled it over as well.

“Give us _some_ credit,” Erena said. “That was _part_ of the reason.”

“But only part of it,” Tsubasa insisted. Anju nodded in response, and that time she was the one to speak.

“You can feel it, too, can’t you?” she asked. Tsubasa didn’t answer the question immediately. Instead she looked down at her own hands, resting in her lap on top of her shitty hospital blanket, and for a few seconds she just stared at them before, slowly, raising one of them up in front of her. She curled her pinky and ring finger in, pointing her index and middle fingers towards the wall, thumb sticking straight up into the air. And then she fired. And nothing happened.

“It’s gone,” she said, and there was a moment of somber silence before Erena nodded along.

“It’s the same for us,” she said. “After we woke up neither of us could use magic either. It feels like… Like something happened when we came back around. Like something about being ripped away-”

“No,” Tsubasa interrupted, shaking her head before Erena could finish. “You know that’s not it. We didn’t lose our magic when we woke back up,” she said. “We lost it years ago. Whatever we were doing that whole time, whatever magic we were using… It wasn’t ours.”

“I’d had that thought as well,” Erena admitted. “But if that’s the case, if the magic we were using wasn’t our own, then… Something must have given it to us.”

“Or someone,” Anju said, causing both Tsubasa and Erena to look back at her in surprise. She was just staring back at them with a stern expression, though, seeming convinced in what she was saying. “You both heard it too, didn’t you? After we were taken, when we were still asleep, there was… There was something else out there. Some _one_ else out there, talking to us. You heard it too, right?”

“I… I think so,” Tsubasa said, straining her mind to think back to those distant, clouded memories as best she could. They were vague, and they were murky, but somewhere in the middle of it all Tsubasa could swear she remembered some shred of what Anju was talking about. But that only left her with more questions than answers.

“I’d always thought the Silence were just some force of nature,” Erena said. “I’d always thought they were feral, vicious animals. But if there’s someone else out there, someone capable of controlling them, of controlling _us_ …”

“Someone capable of giving and taking magic itself…” Tsubasa added on, brows furrowing down as she thought on that. No matter how many times she turned the problem over, though, there was one conclusion she kept coming back to: “I can’t help but feel like we’ve missed something.”

* * *

**11:58 am, May 11th, 2030  
** **Tokyo General Hospital (11th Floor), Yoyogi, Tokyo**

Kotori couldn’t help but be a little nervous as she walked towards Umi’s room. She knew that, all things considered, Umi’s injuries hadn’t been that bad. She would have some scarring on her abdomen from where she’d been struck that would likely last the rest of her life, and it was probably going to be a few long months of physical therapy before she was back on her feet and fighting at full strength again. But against an attack that easily could have killed her, she was just lucky to be in a hospital instead of a morgue. Still, this was about enough hospital visitations to last Kotori an entire year, all packed into a single day.

Some of Kotori’s nervousness, at least, was dispersed the moment she opened the door to Umi’s room and saw the scene playing out inside: Honoka sitting on the edge of Umi’s bed with her phone out, eagerly showing her whatever was on the screen while Umi looked on over her shoulder.

“And look! They’re saying Ruby-chan managed to kill one basically all on her own! Can you believe that?” she was saying. “She didn’t even need Maki-chan’s help or-” She cut herself off mid-sentence, though, as Kotori stepped into the room, and Umi glanced up at her as well, before Honoka’s face lit up with excitement. “Kotori-chan! You’re here!”

“I am,” Kotori giggled back, stepping further forward into the room. “You look as energetic as ever.” Honoka had ended up with a few scrapes and bruises during her fight with Erena and Anju, and there was a red mark around her neck where Erena’s chains had dug in, but aside from that she was mostly unscathed. As 909’s members had gone, she might have gotten off the easiest.

“Come in, have a seat,” Umi said, motioning to the edge of her bed rather than to the chairs against the wall, and Kotori was happy to oblige. She walked over and sat down on the edge of the mattress, and no sooner had she done so than Honoka leaned up against her, tilting her phone screen so Kotori could see it.

“Check it out!” she said, opening up one of the various social media apps on her phone and typing Kotori’s own name into the search bar. “People have been talking about you nonstop, it’s all over every website I check! People talking about your grand return, and your heroic rescue, and your big showdown with Tsubasa Kira on top of the roof! Everyone’s obsessed with it!” Sure enough, as Kotori watched Honoka scroll down along the feed, she saw post after post after post that had been made about her: news articles covering the fight, grainy cell phone photographs and videos that had been captured through windows during her battle, posts talking about how cool or heroic she had been or expressing thanks, even photographs of people posing with their old Kotori Minami merch, from back when she had still been active. For a moment Kotori just stared down in awe, mouth slightly agape, before she laughed sheepishly.

“That’s honestly kind of embarrassing,” she said.

“Speaking of Kira-san,” Umi cut in, perhaps picking up on Kotori’s vague discomfort with being thrust into this particular spotlight, “how is she doing?”

“She’s alright,” Kotori replied, eyes shifting over to Umi. “Hopefully they’ll let her out of here soon.”

“And you two have spoken?” Umi asked. “You’re…?” She trailed off without finishing that question, but Kotori had a sense of where she was going, and she spent just a moment thinking of her response before she answered.

“We’re picking up where we left off, I think,” she said. “I’m just happy to have her back.”

“Where you left off…” Umi repeated, letting those words lingering in the air for a few seconds before speaking again. “You know, with the sudden resurgence in popularity you’ve gained from all of this, there wouldn’t be a better time for you to step back into the Magical Girl scene. People are already clamoring for it all over the country. If you announced your return now, that news could skyrocket you straight to the top.” But as Umi said that Kotori merely looked back at her, her own expression not changing, and it only took a moment of that for whatever little glimmer of hope had been behind Umi’s eyes to disappear. “But I’m sure you didn’t need me to point that out,” she added on, voice softer as she broke her eyes off to the side.

“I’m sorry, Umi-chan,” Kotori said. “I just don’t think that’s in my future. I’m not really eager to come back to this life. And… After everything Tsubasa’s been through I don’t think she’ll be either. I think… I think we’ll probably just keep things simple for a while,” she said. “Find somewhere peaceful and quiet where we can go, just the two of us for a bit. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” Kotori smiled softly as she said all that, and there was a moment of stillness as she did- before she was suddenly and abruptly pulled from her thoughts by Honoka tossing her arms around her.

“Even if you and Tsubasa-chan wanna run off on a lover’s retreat you’ve still gotta keep in touch with us too, alright?” she insisted. “We barely ever see you while you’re off in France! I’m not gonna let you drop off our radar that easily again!” For a moment, as Honoka said that, Kotori was startled. She looked down at Honoka, though, and those big, wide eyes forming into an expression that was somewhere between determined and pleading, and then over at Umi, whose expression was more serious, but no less sincere, and Kotori felt a small pang of guilt. She knew Honoka was right: she hadn’t been the best at keeping up with her old friends ever since she had left Japan.

“I’ll do my best not to let that happen,” Kotori promised, reaching up to wrap one of her arms around Honoka in turn. She reached her other hand out, gesturing Umi forward, and though she looked just a little embarrassed by it Umi scooted forward on the bed and joined them, letting herself get pulled into the hug as well. And then Kotori felt a deep pang of sorrow in her chest, and she hugged her friends just a little bit more tightly. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“You don’t have to be sorry!” Honoka insisted. “Just promise we’re gonna see each other more from now on, alright?”

“Yeah, alright,” Kotori replied, nodding slowly. “I promise.”

* * *

**12:14 pm, May 11th, 2030  
** **Tokyo General Hospital (8th Floor), Yoyogi, Tokyo**

Dia felt sick to her stomach as she stood outside the hospital room. Ever since hearing what had happened to Mari, she just- she just couldn’t handle it. She kept thinking through that last conversation in her mind, wondering why she hadn’t done more, wondering why she hadn’t tried to stop her. Maybe Kanan had been right. Maybe Dia should have tried to restrain her. Maybe she should have fought Mari tooth and nail, made sure she _couldn’t_ leave, physically. But she hadn’t. And now she was left bearing the consequences.

Dia didn’t know how long she had been standing there in front of that door. She just kept staring down at the handle, and she knew how easy it should have been to reach down and take hold of it, to slide the door open and step into the room, but she just couldn’t make herself do it. She knew what she would see on the other side, and she didn’t know if she was ready to deal with that, didn’t know if she would be able to handle it. At the same time, though, she could practically _hear_ Mari mocking her, even now: _It’s just a door, Dia. You haven’t forgotten how they work, have you?_ Normally those sorts of comments irritated her. Right now, she would have given anything to hear them.

She didn’t know what it was that finally compelled her to grab the door handle. It certainly wasn’t strength. Frustration, maybe, at her cowardice, or at the fictional Mari that sat in her head drawing attention to it. Or perhaps anger. A desire to atone. A feeling that whatever was waiting for her on the other side of this door, she _deserved_ it. That was the last thought that went through her mind before she pulled the handle to the side and forced the door open, and the sight on the other side was worse than she could have prepared herself for.

Mari was laying there on her hospital bed, still, eyes closed, body hooked up to about a dozen different wires and tubes that were the only thing keeping her alive right now. The wires and tubes were attached to just as many different machines, some of them beeping and buzzing and whirring, but Mari herself was completely silent, completely unmoving. And there, sitting right next to Mari’s bed, was Kanan.

Kanan was sitting in a chair, facing Mari, but as Dia opened the door she turned to look at her over her shoulder, and the moment their eyes met Dia felt her blood run cold. For a few seconds they were locked like that, tension so strong that Dia couldn't even move from where she was. And then Kanan pushed her chair back and stood, turning to face Dia fully.

“You’ve got a lot of balls showing up here,” she said, taking a step forward, clearly putting herself between Dia and Mari. Dia swallowed once, and for a moment she was ready to respond with a hundred different objections: saying Mari was her friend too and she had a right to be here, saying that what had happened wasn't her fault, saying that Mari would want her here. But after a few seconds all of those words fell flat, and Dia found herself lowering her head instead.

“I’m sorry,” were the words that ended up leaving her mouth. “I know this was my fault. I know I never should have let her go, and you have every right to hate me for what’s happened to her. I know there’s nothing I can do to fix this. But if there’s anything, anything at all, no matter how small, that I can do to begin to atone for what I’ve caused, I-”

“You can let me deck you one.” Dia paused mid-sentence when she heard that, and after a moment she lifted her head to look at Kanan again, half-expecting that to have been a joke. If it was, though, Kanan’s expression wasn’t making it obvious.

“Excuse me?” she ended up saying.

“Let me punch you. One good one. Right across the face.”

“...And that’s going to make you feel better?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Kanan replied. “Won’t know until I’ve tried.” Dia stared at Kanan for another few seconds, still feeling like this was some sort of prank, like Mari was going to spring up from her bed at any moment and she and Kanan were both going to start laughing at how gullible Dia was. But of course that wasn’t the case.

“Very well,” Dia ended up saying. “If it will help, go ahead and punch me.” Kanan stepped forward as Dia said that, and at that point Dia realized that maybe she’d thought she was calling Kanan’s bluff by saying that. Judging by the way Kanan was already balling up her fist as she closed the space between them, she wasn’t.

“I’m not gonna hold back,” Kanan warned her.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Dia replied, grimly serious about that much, at least. She took a deep breath and tried to steel herself as Kanan finally came up to stand about a foot away from her, fist balled up tightly now, muscles in her arms tensing. And then any part of Dia that still thought Kanan wasn’t going to go through with this was dismissed as Kanan’s fist smashed into the side of her face with enough force to take Dia clean off her feet.

Dia’s head spun as she fell backwards to the ground, ear ringing, half her face practically numb now, and she cursed herself for forgetting just how fucking _strong_ Kanan really was. Dia just barely managed to get her hands out behind her as she fell on her ass, palms stinging as they hit the hard tile floor, though that was barely anything compared to the throbbing still wracking her head. Dia’s vision was, for a few seconds, completely shot, actual sight taken over by various swirling shapes and colors. Even when her sight did start to return it was blurry, but it was enough to see Kanan already turned away from her, walking back towards Mari’s bed. Kanan wasn’t saying anything else, and Dia let another second pass before she spoke up herself.

“Did that make you feel better?” she asked.

“Nope,” Kanan replied, before gesturing to the row of seats lined up against the wall. “Grab a chair.” That confused Dia, leaving her glancing between Kanan and the wall for another moment. But if this was some tiny showing of goodwill from Kanan, no matter how small, she wasn’t about to squander that, and so she quickly got herself back to her feet and moved to drag one of the chairs over to Mari’s bed, even if she was still stumbling slightly with each step she took.

Kanan had already sat back down by the time Dia dragged her chair over, and Dia sat next to her, though she didn’t quite know what to do after that. There were another few seconds of awkward, tense stillness then, and Kanan was staring back down at Mari’s unmoving figure with enough intensity that it almost seemed she might have forgotten Dia was there entirely.

“The doctors told me-”

“I know,” Kanan interrupted, before Dia had to say what neither of them wanted to hear: _Her injuries are bad enough that she’s lucky just to be alive. It will be a miracle if she ever wakes up_.

Dia didn’t know what else to say after that. The silence was still suffocating, and she couldn’t tell what Kanan must have been thinking about her at that point. Her face still stung, though in some strange way that was actually preferable to all the other discomfort she was feeling. This wasn’t helped at all by the fact that every time Dia glanced down at Mari she felt a fresh pang of guilt gnawing at her stomach, heard that voice in the back of her mind telling her that this was _her_ fault, until she finally had to say something.

“Kanan,” she started. “I truly am sorry for-”

“Save it,” Kanan interrupted, raising a hand to silence Dia before she got any further. “I know it wasn’t your fault.” All the words left Dia’s mouth just like that the moment she heard Kanan say that, and suddenly she was left staring at her in dumbfounded silence, left searching for a response until she could finally muster one of the least elegant things she had ever said.

“You what?”

“I was there with her when this happened,” Kanan replied, still keeping her eyes on Mari as she spoke. “I tried to stop her. I told her how dangerous it was. I begged her not to. But she wouldn’t listen to me. And if _I_ couldn’t stop her… I know you never had a chance.”

To say she felt relief at that point wouldn’t quite be accurate. Was Dia, on some level, happy to know that Kanan didn’t blame her or despise her for what had happened? Probably. But emotions were more complicated than that, and all Dia could do in the end was nod, turning her eyes back to Mari as well.

“I still feel guilty,” she ended up saying.

“Yeah, well,” Kanan replied, “that makes two of us.” Once again Dia didn’t entirely know how to respond to that, and she ended up falling silent- for a few seconds, at least. The silence was still just as tense as before, though, and Dia found herself compelled to say something just to fill it, asking the first question that came to her mind.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked. “Now that this is all over, I mean.”

“Dunno,” Kanan replied, shrugging without appearing to give the question much more than a passing thought. “Head back to what I was doing, probably. Solo work, keeping an eye on the city, y’know.”

“And you’re content with that?” As Dia asked that question Kanan raised an eyebrow, finally glancing at Dia out of the corner of her eye before she spoke.

“If you’ve got something to say then just say it.” Dia winced at that, realizing Kanan nearly had a better grasp on her thoughts than she did at this point. Dia wasn’t even sure if she had _realized_ what she was building towards. But it was a little late to back out now. So, taking a deep breath, Dia forced herself to say what had been on her mind.

“Ever since we founded Ohara Incorporated I always had Mari there by my side,” she began. “I never would have been able to manage running the agency if I had been by myself. And… Now that Mari is going to be out of the picture for a while,” she went on, unable to let herself acknowledge that _a while_ might very well mean _forever_ , “I… There would be a place for you there, if you wanted it,” she finally said. “As a real part of the agency. Not just as someone we brought in to train our talents. As someone who’s really involved, in all of it.”

“You’d actually want me there?” Kanan asked, and Dia chose to interpret the fact that she wasn’t outright rejecting the offer or laughing in her face as a good thing.

“I would,” she replied. “If that’s what you wanted as well.”

“What do you think?” Kanan asked, though just a moment later Dia realized she wasn’t the one being asked. Kanan’s eyes were still on Mari, and as she sat there in silence Dia could imagine what Kanan must have been doing: picturing what Mari would say if she were there, the same way Dia herself had while she had been out in the hall. Hopefully, Mari was kinder to Kanan than she had been to her.

A few more seconds passed that way, and Dia didn’t say anything during that time, allowing Kanan to have as long as she needed to mull the question over, to let Mari say everything she wanted to say. Still, she would be lying if she said she weren’t nervous, or that she wasn't relieved when Kanan finally answered.

“Yeah, alright. I’m in.” Even after she heard that it was another second before Dia processed it. And while, under other circumstances, she would have been happy to get that answer, somehow this didn’t feel like a moment that called for happiness.

“I can start the paperwork as soon as I get back to the office,” was all she managed to say in the end.

“Don’t sound so sentimental,” Kanan replied, reaching out to punch Dia on the shoulder- mercifully, far less forcefully than she had punched her before. “You’ll almost make me think we’re friends or something.”

* * *

**1:20 pm, May 11th, 2030  
** **Tokyo General Hospital (8th Floor), Yoyogi, Tokyo**

Dia stayed in Mari’s room for nearly an hour after that. Not much else happened during that time, and throughout it all she and Kanan barely spoke. Dia mostly ended up back inside her own thoughts, and she had to imagine the same was true of Kanan herself. Eventually, though, as much as some part of Dia felt compelled to stay there with Mari for hours longer- hell as much as some part of her felt compelled to stay there until she woke up, no matter how long that would be- she had other things to attend to. Sarah had been admitted to the same hospital after her own battle (thankfully, with only a few broken bones to speak of). Dia had already seen her before coming down to Mari’s room, and Sarah had said that she was going to be discharged soon. She’d promised to come to find Dia as soon as she was ready to leave. And, as such, the fact that she hadn’t shown up yet was enough to cause Dia concern.

By that same token, Dia was surprised when, the moment she exited Mari’s room, she saw Sarah standing in the hallway against the opposite wall. Sarah had definitely seen better days, and she currently had one arm in a sling and a crutch under the other to help deal with her fractured leg. Considering the attack she’d taken, though, the fact that she was standing at all right now was impressive. Maybe that was just a testament to how tough she really was.

“Have you been waiting out here long?” Dia asked, brow furrowing as she walked closer to Sarah.

“Not too long. Twenty minutes, maybe.”

“You could have come inside.”

“Didn’t feel right,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “I didn’t wanna intrude.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have kept you waiting,” Dia insisted. “Do you need me to take you home?”

“Nah, Leah’s already on her way to pick me up,” Sarah replied. “I just wanted to see you before I left, because… There was something I wanted to talk to you about.” The moment Dia heard that her chest tightened, and she stopped where she was, still a few steps away from Sarah.

“And that would be?” Dia asked, before Sarah said the exact thing she was afraid of hearing.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About being involved with one of your employees. About it being unprofessional. And… I’ve decided you’re right.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” Dia asked, blurting those words out with just a bit too little restraint for her own liking. Even the phrase _breaking up_ implied that she and Sarah _were_ something, which they had never truly discussed, and she hated herself for letting that level of vulnerability show through, even for a moment. She was equal parts surprised and confused, then, when Sarah started shaking her head.

“No. It’s not like that,” she said, before waving Dia forward as much as she could when one arm was in a sling and the other was holding a crutch. Dia’s brow furrowed, but she followed Sarah’s instruction and stepped forward to close the space between them, until she was close enough for Sarah’s fingers to brush against her arm.

“Explain yourself,” she insisted. “Now.”

“Ayase-san came by my room after I got brought in last night,” Sarah began. “Just to check up on me and wish me well at first. But… We got to having an interesting conversation.”

“Interesting _how_?” Dia said, and the way Sarah avoided her eyes as she asked that question told her all she needed to know.

“Interesting as in… Leah and I are gonna start working for 909.” Hearing that stung. Not as much as a breakup, perhaps, but it still stung all the same. Dia felt her face twisting up in a frustration she couldn’t quite hide, and now she was glancing away as well, avoiding Sarah’s gaze just the same as Sarah had done to her.

“I wish you would have spoken to me before making a decision like this,” she muttered.

“I didn’t really have the chance,” Sarah replied. “The whole conversation got moving pretty quickly. But hey,” she added on, fingers tugging at Dia’s sleeve, forcing Dia to look back at her. “This’ll be better for us, alright? You said it yourself, mixing business and whatever this is-”

“Whatever _this_ is?” Dia repeated, brow furrowing down as she said that. “And what exactly _is_ this?”

“All I’m saying,” Sarah replied, “is that it would be pretty weird for you to be both my boss _and_ my girlfriend.” As much as Dia might have wanted to act irritated at Sarah- hell, as much as she might have actually _been_ irritated- she still found it impossible not to let her cheeks flush when Sarah said that. And if they were pink before, they shifted to full-on red as Sarah tugged her forward by the shirt and kissed her right there in the middle of the hallway.

Sarah held Dia against her lips for a few long seconds, and Dia allowed her to, heart beating just a bit faster than she cared to admit. The past few days had been the most chaotic, hellish days of her life, and right now, she _needed_ this. Even if it was embarrassing to feel so utterly dependent on another person, right now, she couldn’t help herself. She stayed against Sarah’s lips for as long as Sarah would let her remain there, and when she was finally pushed away Dia saw a grin on her girlfriend’s face that immediately put her on edge.

“Hey, I almost forgot to mention,” Sarah said. “I didn’t just leave you totally high and dry during the negotiations. I got you a pretty sweet deal out of this, too.”

“A sweet deal _how_?” Dia asked, brows immediately furrowing down again, even as she remained close to Sarah.

“I dunno,” Sarah replied. “I think that’s the sort of thing you should talk to Ayase-san about in person.”

* * *

**8:55 am, May 12th, 2030  
** **Offices of 909 Talent Agency, Minato, Tokyo**

“Over or under,” Nozomi said. “Fifty media requests.”

“Are you kidding?” Eli replied, scoffing at that. “Try a hundred.”

“Feeling optimistic, hmm?” It felt strange, almost, to be walking back into their offices today, as if it were just any normal day. Still, as Eli approached the exterior of the towering 909 building, she couldn’t deny that everything _looked_ the same. They had passed some ruined buildings and torn up streets on the way in here, of course, but the damage didn’t appear to have actually reached their doorstep. And now, after all the chaos had subsided and the dust had settled, here they were, coming to work like it was just another day.

Eli and Nozomi had taken the previous day off, figuring that if nothing else, they had earned some rest after the several days of nonstop work they had been putting in during the attacks. Eli had shut down the offices completely, for that matter, telling all of their other employees and stars to take the day off and rest up as well- assuming hospitalizations and injuries hadn't already forced those issues. Even then, Eli had still spent the better part of the day on her laptop working from home, getting caught up on emails and sifting through a mountainous backlog of work. And now that their one day of rest was over, they really couldn't afford to relax for any longer.

Crass as it might have been to say, in their line of business, tragedy often spelled opportunity. The chaos and the destruction that had gripped Tokyo had been horrific, of course, and Eli felt deeply for anyone who had been hurt or killed as a result. At the same time, however, many of 909’s own stars had risen from those ashes, and had rocketed into the spotlight while fighting Silence or rescuing civilians. There was no doubt in Eli’s mind that the barrage of press requests that was about to descend on them- that already _had_ descended on them, surely- was quite possibly going to be even more hectic than the crisis itself, and they couldn't afford to fall behind at a time like this.

Eli and Nozomi eventually entered into the lobby of the building, tapping their IDs on the security checkpoint before they made their way over towards the elevators. Several familiar faces were lingering around below- After School Navigators chief among them, with Maki present as well, apparently spending some time chatting before their day started in earnest.

“You should have seen it!” Nico was in the middle of boasting. “I pummeled that thing into the ground like it was trash. No way it could stand up to me.”

“Is that so?” Maki replied, raising an eyebrow. “Because according to what I heard, Nozomi-chan was the one who actually did most of the hard work.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just rumors!” Nico insisted. “Besides, I don’t need to take this from you. Didn’t you have to get bailed out by the newbie?”

“I was the one bailing _her_ out, but whatever.” Nozomi merely chuckled at the snippet of conversation she overheard, and she decided not to interject with her own account of what may or may not have happened, simply following Eli the rest of the way to the elevators.

“What floor?” Eli asked, stepping inside the cabin of the elevator that was already, fortunately, waiting right there for them.

“Thirteen for a start, I think, though I’ll probably be running up and down all day today.”

“Frankly, I envy you,” Eli replied, grimacing as she hit the button for the thirteenth floor, and then for the twentieth. “I’ll probably be lucky if I get to spend five minutes away from my desk before I leave here tonight. I have a feeling my phone will practically be glued to my ear by the time this is all over.”

“You could have just taken a vacation day,” Nozomi reminded her. “You’re the president. You can do that, and nobody gets to call you out.”

“I’d call myself out,” Eli muttered, watching the lobby disappear as the elevator doors slid closed. She took a long sip from her coffee as they were lifted higher up into the building, ignoring the way it burned at her tongue and throat as it went down. It wasn't even _good_ , but right now she needed the caffeine that badly, and she had a feeling she would be downing four or five more of those before the day was over.

When the elevator reached the thirteenth floor Nozomi turned and gave Eli a quick kiss goodbye before stepping out, and then the doors shut again, carrying Eli the rest of the way up towards her office. She knocked back the rest of her coffee on the way up there, already making a mental note to stop by the breakroom and grab another cup before she actually got settled in. Any plans she might have had were immediately waylaid, though, when the doors opened into the waiting area outside her office, and she saw a familiar face sitting there in one of the chairs.

“Kurosawa-san,” Eli said, stepping off the elevator, and towards where Dia was waiting for her. “I wasn’t expecting you. Did we have an appointment?” Dia practically lurched up at Eli’s question, looking stiff and tense, and a little bit sheepish as well.

“We didn’t,” she admitted, shaking her head. “When I called yesterday it seemed your offices were closed. But… I was hoping you might be able to make time for me regardless.”

“Of course,” Eli replied, smiling as she walked past Dia and towards her office door, waving for Dia to follow. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not quite prepared at the moment, though. I did just get in.”

“It’s quite alright,” Dia replied, shaking her head as she stood up. “I’m the one who should be apologizing for ambushing you like this.”

“Not at all,” Eli insisted. She paused outside the door to her office for just a moment, fumbling with her keycard until she finally managed to get it unlocked, and then she flipped the lights on, walking over to her desk to set down her bag and toss her empty coffee cup into the little trash can underneath it. “Please,” she said, gesturing to the chair just in front of her desk, while circling back to her own. “Take a seat.” Dia did just that, though even with the invitation extended she still seemed tense as she went over and sat down, glancing around Eli’s office every few seconds, and Eli realized that for as much time as they had spent together over the past few days, this was the first time Dia had actually been in here.

“So,” Eli said, and Dia once more seemed to flinch the moment she was addressed. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Right,” Dia replied, nodding in response to that. She paused briefly, taking a moment to breathe deeply, looking like she was preparing herself, and then she spoke up again. “I had a conversation with Kazuno-san yesterday, about your agency and Saint Snow.”

“Ah, right,” Eli replied, nodding along in response. “She did say she would deliver that news to you in person. I do hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way,” Eli was quick to add on, getting the feeling that there might have been the smallest hint of disapproval behind Dia’s tone. “I do want to make it clear that Kazuno-san is the one who brought the topic up. I would never try to poach talent away from you like that.”

“I understand that much,” Dia replied, though even then it still felt like there was at least some small amount of disdain behind her words. “What I’m more interested in, though,” she added on, “was something else she said to me. She mentioned getting Ohara Incorporated a ‘good deal,’ but she wouldn’t elaborate on what that meant. She suggested I come here and speak to you myself.”

“Is that so?” Eli replied, and she couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from twitching up into a small smile when she heard that. “Kazuno-san is quite the coy one, isn’t she?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Dia groaned back, with the sort of tone that suggested, to Eli, that maybe she knew Sarah on a level that was more than strictly professional. “Regardless, though, I would very much like to know what she meant by that.”

“Of course,” Eli replied, before reaching out to tap the power button on her computer, watching the screen flick to life in front of her. “Give me just a moment, if you would. I sent an email out about this, but it was while we were shut down yesterday. I don’t know if anyone will have gotten back to me yet.” As her computer powered on Eli navigated to her inbox and started to sift through the several-hundred emails that were still waiting for her, even after she'd spent most of yesterday chipping away at that number. Dia seemed content enough to sit there and wait, at least, and after a minute or so of searching Eli eventually managed to find what she was looking for. “Ah, right here,” she said, opening up the relevant email and its attachment, before turning her computer screen around so that Dia could see it. “Take a look at this, and tell me if it looks acceptable.”

Dia leaned in a bit closer over the desk as Eli turned her screen, and Eli watched as Dia’s eyes started to move back and forth, tracing through line after line of the document. For the first few seconds her brow was furrowed down, and she looked more intensely focused than anything else, straining to parse the complicated legalese that made up the first paragraph or two. Eventually, however, her eyebrows suddenly lifted up in visible surprise, eyes going a little wider, and then she glanced back up at Eli, still looking to be in shock.

“This is-” she started to say.

“To your liking, I trust?” Eli replied.

“Is this real?” Dia asked. “This is official?”

“Not yet,” Eli replied. “Not until you sign off on it. But I’ve already spoken to the other relevant parties and gotten their approval as well. Kunikida-san and Tsushima-san didn’t appear to feel terribly strongly one way or another, if I’m being completely honest. But Ruby-san… She was over the moon when I brought the idea up to her. I think it’s safe to say that this is very clearly what she wants.”

“I don’t- I don’t understand,” Dia said, eyebrows creasing back down as she stared at the computer screen again, eyes starting to glance over the lines of the contract once more, though Eli had a feeling she wasn’t really reading it at this point. “Why would Ruby agree to this? 909 is the largest agency in Tokyo by a mile. Ohara Incorporated is hardly anything by comparison. And she’s actually alright with leaving here?”

“Do you really need me to answer that question?” Eli replied, laughing softly as she finally turned her computer screen back towards herself. “Ruby-san couldn’t care less about how large or prestigious our agency is. She’d give that all up in a heartbeat if it meant getting the opportunity to work alongside you. And, while I generally try to make it a habit not to get involved in the personal lives of my employees,” Eli lied, “if you’ll permit me to break that rule just this once… I think that’s where she belongs as well. So what do you say?” she asked. “909 signs Saint Snow, and in exchange, Ohara Incorporated signs Little Demons. Does that sound like a fair deal to you?”

For a few more seconds Dia appeared unable to respond, still just staring at Eli’s computer, even once the screen was facing away from her. Eli was content enough just to let her sit there, though, taking as long as she needed to process what she’d heard. And then, eventually, Dia lifted her eyes enough to look towards Eli again, expression hardening into a picture of resolve that, if Eli was being honest, reminded her quite a bit of her younger sister.

“Yes,” she said, reaching a hand out across the desk, and Eli was all too happy to take it. “You have a deal.”

* * *

**9:08 am, May 15th, 2030  
** **Offices of Ohara Incorporated, Nakano, Tokyo**

The central area of Ohara Incorporated’s office was just as crowded as usual- even more crowded, perhaps, since Little Demons boasted one more member than Saint Snow- and yet somehow it still managed to feel more empty than it ever had. Dia had never fully realized, she supposed, just how strong a presence Mari carried with her anywhere she went. Even if she was just standing quietly off to the side (which she never did to begin with), she always had a way of filling any room she was in, and now that she was gone that emptiness was impossible not to feel. But Dia couldn’t let herself be dragged down by those thoughts right now. This wasn’t an occasion for sadness.

“It’s with great joy that I welcome the newest members of the Ohara Incorporated family,” she said, though even that name felt strange to say right now. All six of her stars were lined up in front of her, Three Mermaids grouped together on one side while Little Demons were grouped together on the other, while Kanan stood right beside her. “I’m sad, as we all are, that Mari can’t be with us on this occasion. But I’m sure that if she _were_ here right now, she would no doubt know just the right thing to say- and would then say the exact opposite, as she always seemed so fond of doing.” That earned Dia a bit of laughter from around the room, melancholic as it may have been, and that helped her to feel at least a bit better.

“In actuality,” she went on, “I’m sure Mari would say something about… Being excited about the bright future ahead of us, and about all the good we have the potential to do in the aftermath of these attacks. Tokyo is still recovering from all that’s happened, and there are people who have lost their homes, their livelihoods, even their lives. Right now, people need heroes to look up to. They need something to bring them happiness in what would otherwise be a very dark time. And each of you,” she said, letting her eyes scan out across the six faces looking back at her, “have the chance to become that something. When you go out there today, you are not just representing Ohara Incorporated, or even Magical Girls as a whole. You are representing the very concept of a hope that people so desperately need right now. So go out there,” she concluded, “and give a performance that would make Mari proud.”

With her speech finally finished Dia held her breath for another moment, before letting out a low, quiet sigh. Everyone else was still staring back at her, and there was a moment of stillness before Dia felt Kanan’s hand against her shoulder.

“Not bad,” she said. “How many times did you practice that one in front of the mirror?”

“Less times than I should have,” Dia replied. “That’s all I have to say, though, unless anyone else has any questions.”

“Can we do a team chant??” Chika blurted out, and Dia merely stared back at her in surprise for a moment, before her look settled into one of confusion.

“Excuse me?”

“You know, like sports teams and stuff do!” Chika explained. “We all put our hands in the center and say something on three.”

“I… Suppose so.”

“What are we gonna say?” Ruby asked. “Just, like… Ohara Incorporated?”

“Nah, that’s boring,” You insisted. “What about something like… Three Little Mermaid Demons.”

“That sounds stupid, You-chan,” Riko scolded.

“Let’s hear you come up with something better, then.”

“What about, _Angel of darkness, descend from above and bless us with your unholy-_ ”

“Vetoed,” Kanan interrupted, stepping in towards the center of the room. “What about something simple, like… ‘For Mari.’” Dia glanced around the room after Kanan said that, and everyone seemed to be in agreement, nodding back at her. With their tacit approval Kanan stepped the rest of the way forward, stretching her hand out in front of her. “Everyone get in here, then.”

Dia stepped forward to place her hand on top of Kanan’s, and the others moved in around them as well, packing together into a tight, crowded circle as they all stacked their hands together. Ruby stepped up right beside Dia, shoulders bumping against each other while her hand ended up on top of Dia’s in the pile. She glanced over, eyes catching Dia’s for a moment, and Ruby gave her a small smile that Dia returned, before turning her eyes out over the rest of the group again.

“Alright, everyone,” Dia said. “For Mari, on three. Are you ready?”

“Yeah!” Ruby said.

“Let’s go!” Chika urged.

“Right, then. One, two, three-” Dia counted, before, in perfect unison, all eight of them threw their hands into the air and shouted out at the top of the lungs.

“FOR MARI!”

“...Zura.”

* * *

**1:07 am, May 16th, 2030  
** **Musashino, Tokyo**

Kotori had been jumping at shadows recently- ever since this had all ended, really. The city was peaceful again. It hadn’t seen a single Silence attack since the invasion had ended, and since A-RISE had returned. It would eventually, Kotori was sure. But right now, things seemed peaceful. And yet Kotori still couldn’t let herself relax.

Maybe it had been a mistake to go wandering down the street this late at night, then, but Tsubasa was still concussed, and she had been playing that up for all it was worth- not that Kotori particularly minded. She was happy to play the doting housewife, waiting on Tsubasa hand and foot, attending to her every need while she recovered. Really, Kotori was just happy to have her back at all. She wanted to spend as much time with Tsubasa as possible, before-

Before she saw a rift open in front of her.

Kotori stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that tear form in the air, right there in the middle of the otherwise empty street. Every muscle in her body tensed as she shifted back into a defensive stance, dropping the pharmacy bag to the ground where the pill bottles and bags of snacks clattered against her feet. The rift opened wider, enough for Kotori to get a small glimpse into the world beyond, but nothing came through. Not yet, at least.

“ _I’ve upheld my end of the bargain_ ,” a voice came from inside the rift- human, and yet not, all at the same time. “ _Did you think you could run from me forever?_ ” Kotori let her body relax slightly when she heard it, shoulders lowering, muscles loosening.

“I haven’t been trying to run,” she replied. “I’ve just been waiting.”

“ _Well I’m here now. Come. It’s time._ ” The rift opened a little wider as Kotori said that, and then she watched with an unflinching, steely-faced expression as a hand stretched out- dark and gnarled, and far larger than a human’s, large enough that Kotori could stand atop it. She stared at it for a moment, and then she nodded, stepping over the dropped bag and walking until she was stepping up into the otherworldly palm.

Kotori watched as the hand started to withdraw, carrying her back towards the rift with it, and for a few more seconds she just stood there, unflinchingly resigned to this fate. And then, just as she was about to cross the threshold and enter into the rift, wings erupted from behind Kotori. She threw herself backwards, pulling free from the monstrous hand just before its fingers were able to close in around her, and she swung her wings violently, feathers flying loose and slashing down against the creature’s palm. The hand recoiled away, but no sooner had it done so than a dozen other hands were shooting out from the rift, all reaching out and stretching towards her at once.

Kotori’s feet touched down on the ground again, and then she lurched backwards, trying to keep distance between herself and the hands that were still shooting out towards her. She swung her wings again, more feathers shaking loose, tearing through the air towards her assailants. Some of the feathers found their mark, but for every hand that recoiled away two more were already coming out from the rift, snaking towards her faster than Kotori could avoid. She flapped her wings again to try to keep distance, but the effort was as futile as Kotori had always known it was going to be.

A hand wrapped around Kotori’s leg, trapping her in its grip and yanking her forward again, and once one of them had gotten ahold of her Kotori was powerless to stop the others. Another hand grabbed at one arm, and then the other, one hand grappling at her shirt, one of them tangling into her hair, and suddenly they were all pulling her forward again, dragging her in towards the rift. Kotori tried to fight, tried to struggle, tried to twist herself loose or slash her way out with her wings, but it was of little use. The hands just kept dragging her forward, all the way to the rift, and through to the other side. And the moment Kotori was past the threshold the rift sealed itself back up, leaving the empty street still and silent once again, save for the little plastic pill bottle slowly rolling its way towards the storm gutter.

* * *

**End of Arc 1**

* * *

**10:04 am, May 16th, 2030  
** **Odaiba, Tokyo**

Two figures stood atop a rooftop in Odaiba, staring out across the water that separated them from the heart of Tokyo. The mid-morning sun was reflecting brightly off the peak of each little ripple and wave, and shining brightly across the towering landscape of glass and concrete and steel. It was miraculous, really, how quickly everything seemed to have bounced back. Just a few days ago the city had been on complete and total lockdown, barely a person daring to step foot outside while the streets were being plagued by Silence. And yet, now that the threat was dealt with, people were already going back to their normal lives, as least as much as they were able. It was a strange sort of resilience- strange, and yet awe-inspiring all the same.

“Did you hear?” one of the figures asked, glancing down at her companion. “It’s official. A-RISE aren’t coming back.”

“Is that so?” the other replied. “Who could have seen that coming?”

“I heard rumors they’ve all lost their powers. Unconfirmed, but it’s a shame if it’s true.”

“It’s for the better. They never could have bounced back from a PR fiasco as big as trying to destroy the whole city.” The first figure merely laughed at that, before turning her eyes away from her companion, and out over the water once more.

“Still, I always sort of felt like we were all just holding our breaths, waiting for them to come back someday,” she said. “And now that chance is gone. A-RISE are out of the picture for good, Saint Snow have landed in Tokyo, and that upstart Little Demons group are making a name for themselves out of nowhere. Everything’s getting shaken up, and I have a feeling it’s about to get very interesting around here.”

“Maybe so. But that’s good for us.”

“Is that so?”

“Just you watch,” the second figure said, pulling the now-finished lollipop stick from between her teeth and flicking it down to her feet, before raising her hands in front of herself, framing the Tokyo skyline with her fingers. “We’re gonna come out swinging," she declared. "And when the dust all settles, this whole city will know the name DiverDiva.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a wiser man than I once said, "See you in the sequel, bitch."
> 
> All joking aside, thank you so much to everyone who's stuck with this fic this far and made it all the way to the end! This has turned into my longest fic by a pretty significant margin, so it means a lot that anyone would stick around for the whole ride regardless. I do, in fact, plan to write a sequel, and I've already got ideas and outlines started, but it's probably gonna be a hot minute before I actually start working on it properly. I've got about a dozen different half-finished WIPs that I want to give some attention to in the meantime, and I'm hoping to make some serious progress on those before I start dumping my time back into something that's likely to be just as long as this fic has been. Regardless, I'm very excited at the thought of writing more in this universe, and I want to extend one last massive thank you to everyone reading this. So thank you, and I hope I'll see you all again in the future!


End file.
